Worst Friends, Best Enemies
by xiao chan
Summary: FINISHED AU: Derek and Meredith have grown up next to each other and have hated every minute of it. Now that the two of them are in the same work place, will they finally realize that animosity is closer to love than they thought? MerDer
1. Chapter 1

**A/N - I know, I know. Another story? You're not finished with your other one! But I know what I'm doing and I'm sort of on a Grey's Anatomy roll so to speak...so I had to write. I just had to. And I had several requests for a more lighthearted fic, so I decided, what the heck? This idea's been in the works for a while, so I might as well.**

**This story is told in third person omniscent, meaning that it will explore both Meredith's and Derek's thoughts. Also important to note, each ruler signifies a siginificant jump in the timeline. In addition, Derek is only three years older in this story.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's and I'm glad I don't. Do you know how much crap Shonda must go through? I wouldn't want that.**

**Chapter 1**

"Mommy!" a tiny little blonde child screamed as she ran into the house with a large scrape on her knee. "Mommy, Derek pushed me! Derek pushed me into the driveway!"

"It was an accident!" a larger child shouted as he followed the little girl into the house. "I didn't mean to! And besides, she kept hitting me with her jump rope!"

Ellis Grey popped her head out the kitchen door and sighed. "Come here, Meredith. Let me see how bad it is." The tiny little girl theatrically limped closer to her mother. When she reached her, Ellis placed her hands underneath her daughter's arms and lifted her onto the countertop. After a few moments of close examination, she declared, "This isn't that bad, sweetie. I'll just clean it out and put a band-aid on it."

Meredith's face contorted in distaste. "You're not going to put alcohol on it, are you?"

Ellis chuckled. "I have to, it's the stuff that works. Derek? Can you go get the first aid kit in the laundry room?" The boy nodded and ran to find it and came back a few moments later with a white plastic case in his hands.

Meredith's eyes widened in fear as her mother pulled out the tiny vial of alcohol and some cotton balls. Derek sneered at her. "You're not scared, are you?"

The little girl turned her head and stuck her tongue out at him. "No." A moment later, she was squealing at the sting.

Her mother ignored Meredith's whimpers and cleaned the cut with surgical precision. When she was done, she looked her daughter sternly in the eye. "Now, what do you say to Derek?"

The little girl's mouth dropped in horror. "He was the one that pushed me!"

"But you started it," Ellis said very firmly. "Now, what do you say to Derek?"

Meredith turned her gaze to Derek and scowled at him. "Sorry."

Derek smirked. "I'm sorry too. Sorry that you're face is so ugly."

The little girl shrieked in rage as she leapt off the counter and ran after her annoying next door neighbor. What she really needed was a jump rope to choke him with. Derek, however, just laughed as she chased him out of the house and around the street. He loved annoying that little girl. Served her right for hitting him with her stupid jump rope.

Ellis watched the two run off and simply shook her head in amusement. "Ellis?" Richard called from upstairs. She smiled to herself, and loving thoughts of her husband replaced thoughts of her mischievous daughter and the dreaded enemy next door.

* * *

"I dare you…" Izzie Stevens said very slowly, looking around the playground for a good dare. Then she spotted a dark haired boy swinging from the monkey bars by his arms. "I dare you to kiss Derek Shepherd on the lips."

Meredith grimaced. "That's gross, Izzie! I don't want to kiss him!"

"Chicken," Izzie declared. She tucked her fists under her arms to form fake chicken wings and began flapping them. "Chicken!"

There was only one thing Meredith hated more than Derek Shepherd, and that was being called a chicken. Two of her strongest passions collided against each other and she was having a difficult time choosing. Then she turned her gaze and watched him as he and his best friend, Mark Sloan pointed directly at her and started laughing. That scene made her decision for her.

"Fine," Meredith grumbled. Without another thought, she marched up to the playground, pulled Derek off the monkey bars by his pants and kissed him swiftly on the lips. A nanosecond later, she pulled away in disgust and went back to Izzie while ignoring the shocked stares of the fifth graders around her.

"Omigosh, you kissed a fifth grader!" Izzie squealed in excitement. "I can't believe it!"

"I'm not doing it again," Meredith grumbled.

Over by the monkey bars, Mark was laughing his butt off. "You got kissed by a second grader!" he cackled in delight. "I can't believe it!"

Derek would have hit him if he wasn't too busy wiping his mouth vigorously on the back of his sleeve. "That was disgusting!" he cried out.

"You got kissed by a second grader, you got kissed by a second grader!" Mark chanted through his laughter. The rest of the playground had seen and started laughing at Derek's expense.

"Shut up!" he shouted, trying to stare his best friend into submission. "Shut up!"

Mark stopped and stared at his best friend, his amusement growing by the second. "Oh, you don't think she _loves_ you, do you?"

Derek's jaw dropped in horror at the thought. "Ew! That's disgusting!"

"Meredith Grey is in love with you!" Mark shrieked. "That's why she kissed you!" The declaration brought on a new round of chants and howls of laughter.

Derek turned his hateful gaze to the little curly haired blonde girl on the other side of the playground. Their eyes collided in pure loathing. Stupid Meredith Grey.

* * *

"Omigosh, here they come!" Izzie squealed in delight. Meredith simply rolled her eyes and cast her gaze down at the peanut butter sandwich in front of her. Sure enough, Mark Sloan and the devil himself were walking past their lunch table.

"Hi, Mark," Izzie said breathlessly. Meredith was sorely tempted to kick her underneath the table.

"Hi, Izzie," Mark said with a very flirtatious smile (considering he was only thirteen) and the blonde simply melted. The two of them smiled at each other for a while as their friends blatantly ignored each other.

Mark and Izzie started chatting about something or other while Derek stood there awkwardly next to his best friend and Meredith played with her food, her eyes glazed over with boredom. Lately, Izzie had gotten all boy crazy and it was absolutely bewildering to her. Now their lunch time conversations consisted of training bras and which boy was cuter: Mark or Derek. Meredith staunchly refused to voice an opinion because neither peaked her interest.

"Oh, Meredith and I were just talking about that a moment ago," Izzie declared loudly as she swiftly kicked her friend underneath the table. "Isn't that right?"

She looked up and saw Derek smirking at her. Her eyes narrowed at him. "Yeah, sure," she muttered as she stomped down on his toe as hard as she could.

Derek howled as he rubbed his toe through his patented leather shoes. "Geez, Meredith! These shoes are brand new!"

She only stuck her tongue out at him. "Whatever."

Derek turned on his brand new heels and walked off in a huff. Mark smiled apologetically to Izzie and followed his wounded best friend out of the cafeteria. The moment they were gone, Izzie rounded on Meredith, a withering scowl on her face. "Geez, Mer, you can't be nice to him just once?"

"Why?" Meredith shot. "Why should I be nice to him? He's never been nice to me."

Izzie just rolled her eyes like she knew something Meredith didn't. "Boys don't like it when girls step on their feet on purpose. If you want to get Derek to like you back—"

Meredith stared at Izzie in absolute horror. "That's disgusting, Izzie!"

Izzie ignored her and went on talking like Meredith hadn't even said anything. "And you can't space out whenever I'm talking to Mark. You have to pay attention. But anyways," she continued excitedly, "do you think Mark was into me?"

"Yeah, sure," Meredith said, quickly losing interest.

* * *

"Oh my gosh, take a look at _that_ hottie," one of the other freshmen girls sitting at the table muttered. Meredith didn't even have to look. She knew who it was.

"Hey ladies," a deep voice practically purred at them. Though Meredith wasn't looking at all, she could already see Izzie's eyes glazing over. The adolescent Mark Sloan was no surprise to her; she saw him whenever he had been over at Derek's house countless times, throwing loud, raucous parties in the middle of the night and keeping her up at the most inopportune times.

"Mark, what are you doing?" a disapproving voice followed closely behind. Meredith wanted nothing more than to get up and run out of the cafeteria.

Apparently, though, Mark wasn't paying attention to his best friend. "Meredith Grey?" he asked in apparent surprise. She looked up and smiled politely into Mark's light blue eyes.

"Mark Sloan," she repeated very calmly. "Don't tell me you couldn't recognize me."

"Okay then, I won't," he replied with a smirk. "Wow, you've certainly changed since the last time I saw you."

She raised her eyebrows. "You saw me last Saturday when I was grabbing the mail, remember? You told me I had a nice ass." At that point, she was trying to ignore the weird looks she was getting from the other girls at the lunch table.

A look of comprehension crossed his face. "So that was you? Wow, Mer. You have changed. A lot. Hasn't she, Derek?"

Both Derek's and Meredith's eyes narrowed as they focused on each other. "Derek," she said with surprising calm. She still hadn't forgotten the time when he threw water balloons through her open window.

"Meredith," Derek replied with equal coolness. He was still upset when she got him in trouble with his mother by telling her that he threw a party while his parents were out of town. "You really have changed."

"So have you," Meredith answered. "But to me, you'll still always be that little kid that ran around naked in his backyard." She watched the horror and embarrassment cross his face with vindictive satisfaction.

"And you will always be the girl stood outside my bathroom with a pair of scissors," Derek shot back. Izzie and Mark both shot Meredith a look and started giggling. "But it's good to know some things never change, huh?"

Meredith would have loved to kick him in the crotch like she had so many years ago when he first hit adolescence, but this was high school now. They wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior. "Yes. Yes it is."

* * *

"Mom," Meredith whined as she stomped down the stairs in her best peach colored dress and silver wedges. "Why do I have to go?"

"Because, Meredith, the Shepherds are close family friends and their son is graduating from high school," Ellis Grey explained with dwindling patience. "You two used to play together all the time, remember?"

"Because you forced us to!" the teenager girl whined. "Not because we _wanted_ to."

"Meredith Emily Grey," her mother began in a very firm tone, "I do not care what your personal feelings towards this boy are. You are coming to his graduation with us and that is final."

Meredith knew better than to argue when her mother used her middle name. So instead, she followed her mother out the door and climbed into the backseat of the car, dreading the event with every second.

Predictably, the ceremony itself was dreadfully dull. Meredith continued to fidget in her seat, watching people she didn't know much less care about walk across a stage with big smiles and posing for pictures with their favorite teachers. Since Shepherd started with an S, she had to wait an unbearably long time before she got to see the reason she was dragged to the stupid graduation in the first place.

When the ceremony was finally over, she went with her family and the Shepherds to find Derek in the huge crowd. While her family and his gushed over how proud they were that he was finally graduating, Meredith hung in the back with her arms sullenly crossed over her chest. Derek, being the little lapdog that he was, sucked up all their praise and petting with his stupid smile.

The crowd around him finally dispersed and Derek was left face-to-face with an unhappy Meredith Grey. "Wow, I didn't see you there for a moment," he smirked. "My bad."

She rolled her eyes. "Congratulations, jackass. Now you can't climb into my window and put snakes in my bed anymore."

He smirked. "Yeah. I'll be too busy earning my medical degree at NYU."

"At least I won't be anywhere near you," she shot. "And good riddance too. You think you're so hot and so popular…well I've got news for you buddy. You're not. You're just a pompous jerk that poses for all the ladies."

"And you're just a snot-nosed brat without a life," he retorted venomously. Why did she have to ruin everything? This was his graduation day for crying out loud! "Why did you even come today?"

"Not like I had a freaking choice," she spat. "And for the record, you smell like crap."

* * *

"Ugh, intern day," Dr. Mark Sloan groaned as he accepted the cup of steaming Seattle coffee from his best friend. "I hate interns."

Dr. Derek Shepherd chuckled. "You used to be an intern."

"Used to," Mark emphasized. "Not any more."

"Why do you hate interns so much?" Derek asked.

"They're so…small."

"Dr. Mark Sloan?" someone asked. The two of them looked up and found a group of five fresh-faced, bright-eyed interns watching them expectantly.

"Yeah," Mark said with a sigh. "Okay, just—just stand there for a moment and don't talk. We'll get on with rounds in a moment." He went back to the charts he was looking at, considerably more agitated.

"Dr. Derek Shepherd?" a different voice asked. Derek looked up and found his own group of interns looking more nervous than Mark's.

"Hello," he said in a very friendly manner. "Let me guess—you guys are my interns?"

Four of them nodded, but for some strange reason the girl in the front simply gaped at him like he was a blue gorilla. "Derek Shepherd?" the girl said very slowly and very clearly, as if she couldn't quite believe it. "You're Dr. Derek Shepherd?"

Derek looked back at the girl and felt his stomach drop. Son of a—

"Meredith Grey!" Mark exclaimed when he saw her. He unceremoniously rushed toward the girl and enveloped her tiny frame in his arms. "Wow, look at you! You've changed so much! I can't believe you're a doctor now!"

Meredith chuckled. "Hey, Mark. I didn't think I changed that much."

"Maybe you haven't. Are you still a cold-hearted bitch?" Derek asked coolly, finally recovering from initial shock.

Meredith's eyes narrowed as she turned her blue-green gaze towards him. "Depends. Are you still a self-righteous asshole?"

"That is no way to talk to your resident, Dr. Grey," he said very coolly. "Your surgical career rests in my hands for the next two years, and it's within my power to make your life a living hell, so I suggest you don't piss me off." He snorted as he looked the intern up and down for a few moments. "I don't know where you earned your degree, but I hope your medical skills are better than your manners."

**A/N - Um...I know that this opening chapter is choppy and that the timeline keeps jumping, but I needed to introduce the fact that Derek is Meredith's resident in the first chapter.**

**Sooo...what do you guys think? I'd love to hear your opinions.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N - Wow, you guys! The response for the last chapter was positively staggering and for that, I will most definitely be continuing. I love it guys, I freaking love it.**

**As for the part in the last chapter when Derek said that Meredith used to stand outside his bathroom with a pair of scissors, that comes from an old family story. I have these two cousins and they're both brother and sister, and the sister used to be really obnoxious when she was younger. Well, whenever her brother went to the bathroom, she'd throw open the door while he was doing his business and start snipping those scissors in front of him. You can imagine his reaction; I mean, there the poor kid is, his drawers down, completely exposed to his sick, sadistic little sister with a pair of scissors.**

**So that's what I meant about the pair of scissors/bathroom thing.**

**Chapter 2**

"How the hell do you know Mark Sloan _and_ Derek Shepherd?" Cristina Yang asked Meredith as they raced down the hallways of Seattle Grace together, trying to keep up with Dr. Shepherd's brisk pace.

"They're best friends," Meredith explained quickly. "If you meet one, you meet the other. Sort of like a packaged deal."

"I can't believe you called him a self-righteous asshole," she whispered, her tone a mix of awed respect and pure disbelief.

"I didn't call him a self-righteous asshole," Meredith corrected, trying to forget her momentary lapse in judgment. "I _asked_ him if he was a self-righteous asshole. There's a difference."

Cristina rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

Dr. Shepherd came to a sudden halt right at the Nurse's station. "Okay, so this is the routine. Everyday, you are to report promptly at eight o'clock here at the nurse's station to receive instructions. Understood?"

"Yes, Dr. Shepherd," the interns chorused back.

He smiled. "Good. Follow me."

They continued on their tour of Seattle Grace. Derek kept up an excruciating pace and by lunch break, the interns were already exhausted.

"He's absolutely brutal!" George O'Malley exclaimed as he plopped down in the seat next to Cristina.

"I just can't believe he's your resident, Mer," Izzie Stevens chuckled. The two of them had been best friends since kindergarten and hadn't left each other's side, even when they went off to college.

"Shut up," she snapped. "I don't need to be reminded.

"What's going on between the two of you anyways?" Alex Karev asked curiously. "Was he an awkward one night stand or something?"

Meredith's face contorted in disgust. "Are you kidding? There is no way on earth I would sleep with that guy."

Izzie was still laughing. "Meredith and Derek grew up next door to each other," she explained. "They've known each other since God knows when and they've hated each other since."

"Are you _serious_?" Cristina hissed. "Your mother is Ellis Grey, your stepfather is Richard Webber, and you grew up next to Derek Shepherd? _And_ you know Mark Sloan?"

Meredith shrugged. "Surgery was kind of my destiny."

* * *

"Dude, I can't believe Meredith Grey is your intern," Mark Sloan chuckled. The two best friends sat down at their usual lunch table with Preston Burke, still discussing the events from this morning. 

"Shut up," Derek sighed. "I'm trying to forget about it, if you don't mind."

Burke raised his eyebrows. "Who's Meredith Grey?"

"Derek's childhood enemy," Mark explained. "But I guess you could say she's more than just a childhood enemy because they hated each other well into high school."

"And she's your intern?" Burke let out a low whistle. "That's tough."

"She's changed a lot though," Mark observed as he speared his salad. "She's a lot prettier than when we last saw her in high school."

Derek had to admit that much. Meredith was no longer the scrawny fourteen-year-old with stringy blonde hair and squinty gray eyes; she had grown into a petite woman with dark gold hair and sparkling blue-green eyes. "Yeah, well she's still probably just a brat. God, why did she have to be _my_ intern? Why couldn't she have been your intern or something?"

Burke chuckled. "That's the great thing about being her resident. You can make her life hell and call it professionalism."

Derek chuckled. "I guess I could. I've never really been that vindictive though. I mean, I know she's my worst enemy, but…"

"Remember that time senior year when she put all those gay porno mags in your locker?" Mark asked. "And they came spilling out and one of the teachers saw, sent you to the principal's office and the two of you had a 'talk'. He called your parents and they came to school weeping their eyes out, asking you if you really were gay and after swearing up and down that you weren't, you still couldn't get a date to homecoming."

Derek's eyes narrowed as he remembered. "But for Meredith Grey, I can make an exception."

* * *

"Okay," Dr. Shepherd said briskly as he met the five of his interns around the nurse's station the next morning, per his instructions. "Karev, O'Malley, Dr. Burke has requested the two of you. Yang, Stevens, you're in pit, and Dr. Grey," he said with a grin that Meredith did not like at all, "you are in scut." He looked closed the chart he was reading and gestured for them to go off on their separate assignments. 

Izzie shot Meredith a sympathetic look and squeezed her hand reassuringly before running off to pit. Meredith wanted very badly to shoot a scathing remark at her resident, but thought better of it. She didn't want to remain in scut for the rest of her internship; she actually wanted to learn something. So after a heavy sigh, she ran off to the ER.

When she got there, she saw a guy in cycling gear and a sweat band wrapped around his forehead, keeping his spiky hair out of his face. He looked the intern up and down with a practically carnal smile on her face. "Well hello, love," he said in an Australian accent.

Meredith looked at him distrustfully and picked up the clipboard lying on the end of the exam table. "So…it says here you fell off your bike and hit your head."

"Look, I'm fine. All I wanted was a bloody aspirin."

"Then why didn't you go to a drug store and get a bottle of Tylenol?" she asked as she pulled out her penlight and flashed it against his eyes.

"The damn race officials sent me here instead," he explained. "Look, just give me an aspirin for the headache and I'll be on my way. I still have a race to finish."

"I don't think that would be the best idea, sir," she said as she put away her penlight and jotted something down on the clipboard. "You may have a concussion."

"Ah, don't worry about me," he said with a cocky grin. "I'll be fine."

Against her better judgment, Meredith pulled out some forms, clipped them to her board and handed it to him. "You'll need to fill out these forms stating that you left the hospital against medical advice." He took the clipboard and pen from her and started filling out his information. When he was done, he handed it back and got off the table. Right as he was about to leave, he turned around and kissed her full on the mouth. Meredith stood completely still in shock, letting this strange Australian man kiss her.

When he pulled away, he pointed to her. "That was for good luck." He turned back around and opened the door. "Don't worry, darling, you'll see me again."

"For your sake, I hope not!" she shouted back. He just turned and smirked at her as he walked out.

As Meredith was cleaning up, she turned and saw none other than Derek Shepherd standing right outside the windows, glaring at her. She turned her back to the window, trying to ignore him and get on with her work, but it didn't matter. She heard the door open and his stern voice asking, "Dr. Grey, what medical school did you go to?"

"Dartmouth," she replied, not turning to look at him.

"And did they ever say it was acceptable for a doctor to kiss a patient on the mouth?"

Meredith whirled around and gave him the coldest stare she could. "For your information, _sir_, he was the one that initiated the kiss, _not me_."

"I don't care who initiated the kiss, you have no right whatsoever to be kissing a patient," he said in a grimly severe tone. "If I catch you at it again, so help me God—"

"He kissed me!" she screamed. "What part of 'he kissed me' do you not understand?"

"This isn't high school anymore, Dr. Grey," Derek said very crisply. "Who kissed who doesn't matter anymore because this is the real world. And if you ever scream at me again, I'll make sure you don't see the inside of an OR for a month."

Meredith wanted nothing more than to strangle him until the lack of oxygen to his brain made him a vegetable for the rest of his days, but she forced her tightly closed fists to remain at her sides. She knew he was doing this on purpose, trying to provoke her to do something to get her thrown out of this program. But she refused. She was not going to give into his little mind games.

"Is that clear, Dr. Grey?"

"Crystal," she said back through clenched death.

* * *

"Oh my God, I could _kill_ him!" Meredith exclaimed as she slammed her lunch tray down on the table with more force than was necessary. "He's got me working scut and making out with patients and he's blaming _me_. That son of a—" 

"Wait, wait, what?" Izzie asked in confusion. "You make out with patients now?"

Alex smirked. "What, are you jealous?"

"No," Izzie shot back. "What happened?"

Then she explained the situation to her friends, exaggerating every so often about the conversation between Derek and herself. They listened in fascination and amusement and started laughing when she was finished with her story.

"Only you, Mer," Izzie chuckled. "Only you."

She tossed a cherry tomato at her friend. "Shut up. God, that stupid prick!"

"A dreamy prick," Cristina muttered under her breath.

"Amen to that," Izzie agreed.

"What?" Meredith asked in shock. "No! Isobel Stevens, you are not allowed to say that ever again! Derek Shepherd is not dreamy."

"Yes he is," Cristina countered. "He's McDreamy."

"Come on, Mer," Izzie coaxed as she pointed to the table where he, Mark and Preston Burke sat. "Don't tell me you can't see it."

In truth, Meredith _did_ see it. He had changed a lot from that senior so long ago with perfectly coiffed hair. Now, as surgeon, he didn't have time to worry about his hair, but his unruly black locks and shadowed cheeks just made him look even hotter than ever. Coupled with eyes as blue as the Pacific, he was probably one of the hottest surgeons on the west coast.

But that didn't mean she wanted to admit it.

"Whatever," she grumbled. "He's still a jerk."

Two tables away, Derek was regaling his friends with stories from this morning. "So apparently, the esteemed Dartmouth medical program is teaching their students to make out with patients in the ER."

Mark raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"I caught Meredith Grey kissing a guy who was in for falling off his bike in the middle of a race. Then I told her if I ever caught her making out with a patient again, I'd make sure she never got to scrub in for anything."

Burke chuckled. "Were you planning on letting her anyway?"

Derek shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe if I was feeling nice at the time."

"You know, sooner or later you're going to have to let her learn _something_. This is a _learning hospital_," Mark informed him.

Derek glowered at him. "Since when have you cared? You hate interns."

"I'm just saying, even _I_ wouldn't do something that mean," he said. "No matter how many porno mags Meredith Grey stuffed in my locker."

And then all of a sudden, a wonderful idea came to him. A wonderfully sinister idea that might get him fired if he was caught. "Hey, Mark?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you still going out with that OB/GYN?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Oh…nothing. I just have a plan."

* * *

"God," Meredith sighed when she finally reached her locker. "I am so freaking tired." 

"Me too," Izzie yawned. She banged her head against the door of her locker, making a loud metallic sound. "Ow…"

Meredith snickered as she started to open her locker. "Good go—what the hell?" As she opened her locker door, a steady stream of books with titles of _What to Expect When You're Expecting_, _The Nursing Mother's Companion_, and _The Official Lamaze Guide_ came tumbling out of her locker.

The other interns in the locker room turned around to see what was causing all the noise and started snickering when they saw. Cristina was trying to hold in her giggles, but it wasn't enough. George, being the nice guy that he was, was trying to help Meredith gather all the books before anyone else saw.

Izzie's eyes widened when she saw them. "Meredith?" she hissed. "Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"

"I'm not!" Meredith shot back.

"Then why do you have all these books in your locker? Look," she began, inching closer to Meredith so no one could hear, "you can tell me anything, remember? I'm your best friend. Do you know who the father is?"

"I'm not pregnant!" Meredith shouted.

"Are you sure?" she asked in concern.

"Izzie! You're my roommate, I had my period last week, remember? I'm not pregnant!"

Izzie looked down at the books in confusion. "Then why do you have all these books?" A look of comprehension dawned over her face. "You're not…_planning_ on—"

"No!" Meredith insisted. "I'm a surgical intern, when would I have time the raise the kid much less _conceive_ it?" She picked up another book and tossed in her locker.

Unfortunately, she missed one. "Dr. Grey?" Richard Webber was standing in the doorway, looking back and forth between _Birthing from Within_ and his stepdaughter. "I'd like to see you in my office."

**A/N - So when I said that this was supposed to be a lighthearted fic, I meant it. All of this is just humor. I don't want to get into anything particularly heavy. More funny situations to come. ****Don't forget to review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Mark, Derek and Burke were all crowded around the nurse's station right outside the intern's locker room, trying to seem as nonchalant as they could while still straining to hear what was going on inside. Meredith had opened her locker, that much was for certain. They heard the loud clattering of books hitting the floor and the raucous sound of laughter. The three of them struggled to hide their grins, but to no avail.

Moments later, Dr. Webber came passing through and heard the sounds coming from the intern locker room. "What's going on in there?" he asked his residents. The three of them shrugged and turned their attention back to their work, while glancing at each other in the corners of their eyes, struggling even harder not to laugh.

"Dr. Grey?" Derek looked up and saw Richard sticking his head through the door. There was a short pause, and he could only assume that Meredith's stepfather had seen the books. "I'd like to see you in my office."

There was nothing for it now. The three of them burst into laughter, secretly giving each other well earned high fives.

A moment later, Meredith emerged from the room, her face completely red. Derek had to turn his head to keep his laughing face from giving him away.

Meredith, on the other hand, had never been more embarrassed in her life. She solemnly followed her stepfather into his office, silently fuming. She was _not_ pregnant, therefore those books would be of absolute no use to her. What kind of sick woman would buy pregnancy books when they were _clearly_ not pregnant?

When they got to his office, Richard gestured to the chair in front of his desk. "Take a seat, Meredith."

"That's okay, I think I'll stand," she said firmly as she stood in the far corner of his office, her hands clasped behind her back like a dutiful daughter. "What did you need, Dad?"

He sighed. "Meredith, I'm going to get straight to the point. Are you pregnant?"

She'd been expecting that one. "No, I am not pregnant. I don't know how those books got into my locker, but they weren't mine."

The two of them stared each other straight in the eye, Richard challenging the veracity of her words, Meredith challenging her stepfather to call her a liar. After a while, Richard was satisfied that his stepdaughter was telling the truth and leaned back in his chair. "Thank God. I didn't want to be the one to tell your mother. Why did you—"

"Have those books in the first place?" she finished for him as she took a seat. "I don't know. Someone put them in my locker because I certainly didn't buy them."

"Who would want to put pregnancy books in your locker when you're not pregnant?" Richard asked, in complete confusion.

"Someone who wanted to humiliate me," she said, realization slowly dawning on her. "Someone who would want to make it look like I was pregnant." Someone like Derek.

Richard sighed. "Sometimes I wonder how some people became certified doctors."

"Me too," Meredith replied, more to herself than to Richard.

"Anyways, how was your first day?" he asked, dropping the whole mentor act and adopting a more paternal one. "Did you get to see anything particularly interesting?"

"Not really," she admitted. "I spent most of the day doing rectal exams because my resident decided to keep me on scut." She decided to omit the part when she was kissed by a cheeky Australian bastard and Derek threatened the livelihood of her medical career.

"Who's your resident?" he asked in concern.

"Derek," she practically spat out his name.

"That's Dr. Shepherd now," her stepfather chided lightly. Then a reminiscent grin crossed his face. "I remember how the two of you used to get in all those fights."

"Aren't you the one that assigns the interns to the residents?" she accused. "You were the one that put me with him!"

"I did," he admitted with no qualms whatsoever.

Her jaw dropped open in complete shock. "Why in the world would you do that? You know how much I can't stand him!"

"I assigned you to him because he's the best resident I have," he said very simply. "If you watch carefully, you'll learn a lot from him."

"Not if he keeps me on scut," she muttered.

"Yes," Richard frowned. "I'll have a talk with him about that. But I'm serious, Meredith, he's a very talented surgeon. He's planning on specializing in neurology, and as I recall, that's what you wanted to specialize in."

"Please, Dad?" she asked, pulling the daddy's-little-girl card and batting her eyelashes. "Could you _please_ assign me to someone else? Anyone else, anyone but Dr. Shepherd."

He shook his head. "You know, one of these days the two of you will realize that you have a lot more in common than you think."

"Oh I doubt it," she grumbled as she stood up and made her way to the door. "If he keeps me on scut for the rest of the year, I'm blaming you."

She exited the office to the sound of her stepfather's laughter.

* * *

"Code brown," one of the nurses declared in disgust. She began backing away from the patient's bed as if it was contagious.

"What's code brown?" Meredith asked, pulling out the little handbook she kept in the pocket of her lab coat. "Code brown's not in here," she said, frantically flipping through the pages.

"It means the patient just took a dump," the nurse said, pulling out a fresh Depends from a stack of medical supplies in the hallway. "And you have to change him."

Meredith looked at the patient in disgust. Where was the justice in this world? Stupid Derek Shepherd was the one that stuffed her locker full of pregnancy books, effectively humiliating herself in front of her stepfather and all her peers and here she was on scut monkey patrol, attending to a code brown.

"Damn it, Dr. Shepherd," she muttered under her breath as she did her best to clean her patient up. "He's ruining my freaking life."

"Who's ruining your life?" a nauseatingly familiar voice asked from behind her. She didn't need to turn around to know who it was.

"Oh, um, nothing, Dr. Shepherd," she said very quietly. When she was finished changing her patient, she threw away the wet naps and peeled off her rubber gloves in disgust. Then she turned to her resident with a fake cheerful smile. "I guess I should get going then." Just because he had her working the crap jobs didn't mean that she was going to let him see her completely miserable. She couldn't let him win.

"Oh, while your out, Dr. Grey, could you get me a cappuccino?" he asked as she passed him in the doorway.

She stopped to stare at him. "A cappuccino?" she asked, very slowly.

"Yes. Mocha, grande, please. Thanks."

She could have done it. She could have reached up and wrapped her fingers around his neck and squeezed until he was dead and she would have been content. She would have been the happiest person alive if she could kill him and get away with it. But she didn't. Instead, she kept her fists at her sides, squeezing so hard that her fingernails dug into her palms. "Anything else?" she asked, trying as hard as possible to keep her voice from quavering in anger.

He shook his head with that infuriating smile still on his face. "Um, no. I'm pretty sure that's it. But make sure it's from the Starbucks across the street, not from the cart in the lobby. I hate that stuff."

"Okay then." And with very forced, measured steps, she walked out into the hallway and to the elevator, off to get Dr. Shepherd's stupid cappuccino.

Beatrice, the most senior nurse in the hospital had been watching the exchange. She smirked at Derek and said, "You know, for a while I didn't think you had it in you to be such an asshole."

Derek let out a jubilant laugh. "Oh, for Dr. Grey, I can make an exception."

Truth of the matter was, he had Meredith Grey on scut monkey patrol for the past week and he could tell it was slowly driving her insane. She had done more rectal exams and enemas that she probably would have had to do if she were anyone else's intern, but he watched her perform these horrible duties with extreme pleasure.

Karma was a bitch.

Word soon got around the hospital that Meredith Grey, daughter of esteemed and world renown surgeon Ellis Grey and stepdaughter of the chief of surgery, was on scut monkey patrol. If anyone had a task that they didn't feel like doing, they went to find Meredith Grey. And the best part was, she couldn't complain, because Derek would find a way to make life even more difficult.

"Meredith, just tell the chief," cajoled Izzie. "He's your step dad, and I'm sure he'd want to hear if you were being treated like crap."

Meredith adamantly shook her head and squeezed out a bit of anti-bacterial gel onto the pad of her gloved finger. "He's also my boss's boss. If I went to him, Derek would just hate me even more and find another way to make my life hell. And besides, if I tell Dad it'll just make Derek think he's won. And I can't let him think that because he hasn't. I can take whatever else left he has to dish out."

At that moment, Cristina walked into the examination room with a chart in her hands. "Hey, Mer, I need a rectal in room three oh four ASAP. Thanks."

Izzie glared at her. "She's not your intern, Cristina. You're on the same level as her, why can't you do your own rectal exam?"

Cristina looked at Izzie like she was mentally incompetent. "Because I don't want to," she said very slowly to make sure Izzie caught every word.

Meredith sighed. "Fine. I'll be there in as soon as I can, just give me a minute here." She turned back to her patient, rectal syringe in hand.

"No," Izzie said firmly. "Meredith, you are not doing Cristina's rectals for her. This has got to stop and I'm going to make it."

Meredith's eyes widened. "What are you going to do?"

"I am going to give Dr. Derek Shepherd a piece of my mind," she declared as she stood up from her chair and marched out into the hall.

Cristina and Meredith stared at each other for a little while, still trying to process the very brave, very stupid thing Izzie was about to do. Then they dropped what they were doing and chased after her.

"Izzie!" Meredith hissed as she followed her best friend's straight figure down the hall. "You can_not_ do this! He'll only get angry with you and make you do all this crap with me!"

"Meredith, you are a surgeon," she replied, not looking back at her best friend. "A surgical intern, but a surgeon nonetheless. This program is supposed to be a learning experience and you are not learning anything."

"What's going on?" George asked as he joined the three of them.

"Izzie's going to tell McDreamy to get Meredith off scut monkey patrol," she told him.

George's eyes widened. "Seriously?"

"Izzie, for the last time, you can't do this!" Meredith pleaded. "He can make it worse for the both of us!"

Unfortunately, Izzie had never listened to her best friend before and she certainly wasn't going to start now. The four of them found Dr. Shepherd walking out of a patient's room with some lab results in his hands. "Ah, Dr. Grey. I need you to order some overnight labs for the patient in room six thirty-four."

"No, you don't," Izzie said very firmly. George's eyes widened even further and Cristina's mouth dropped open. Meredith just groaned.

"Excuse me?" Derek said in disbelief. Did one of his interns just refuse an order?

"Uh, sure thing, Dr. Shepherd," Meredith said hastily. "Don't mind Dr. Stevens, she's just a bit sleep deprived." And with that, she clamped down hard on Izzie's arm and dragged her off.

"Ow!" Izzie shouted. "Meredith, no—"

"Izzie!" she hissed. "Just stop, okay? I appreciate the concern, but I can handle this."

When Meredith finally let go of her arm, Izzie stuck her hands on her hips. "What if he's got you working scut for the rest of your internship? You have to stop this."

"He won't," she said, very unreassuringly. "Look, I love you for this, but it's nothing I can't handle." She gave her best friend a hug and started to back away. "I'll be fine."

Izzie sighed. "You better be."

Meredith chuckled and ran off to go do the rectal exam Cristina asked her to. She had been doing a pretty good job reassuring her friends lately that she would be fine. If she tried hard enough, maybe she could convince herself.

Truth of the matter was, there was only one thing she hated more than Derek Shepherd, and that was losing. Her life had become a sort of battle for honor. Derek kept piling on all these horrible jobs that were beneath her, tasks reserved for nurses and personal assistants, but she couldn't let that keep her down. He thought that he could break her if he kept trying hard enough, but Meredith couldn't let him break her. She was stronger than this, and she wanted to prove it to him, to everyone, that she could handle it. She was Meredith Grey for God's sake. She could handle anything.

Meredith Grey was _not_ a loser. She was a winner, and she was going to win this battle. She was going to prove to Derek Shepherd that it would take more than a bunch of menial errands and non-stop rectal exams and enemas to bring her down.

Down the hall, Dr. Shepherd watched the scene unfold, feeling the slightest bit guilty. He knew that the entire hospital was giving Meredith hell, taking after his example and it gave him little tingles of satisfaction whenever he saw a nurse ask her to change an elderly patient's diapers, or whenever one of the anesthesiologists needed a sandwich from some obscure restaurant on the other side of town. But watching Dr. Stevens march up to him, getting ready to throw it down for her best friend made him realize that maybe he was being a bit harsh.

But then he remembered the time when she egged his brand-new car on the Halloween of his sophomore year and he ceased to feel guilty after all.

Truthfully, though, he was impressed. Meredith Grey was actually performing the tasks asked of her with considerable class and patience. Never once did she snap at anyone and she always accomplished her duties in a timely, efficient manner. After a few days, it seemed as if she had developed some sort of system to help her get everything done. He couldn't really take her off scut monkey patrol, he rationalized, because if he did it would ruin the newly found equilibrium of the hospital. She made everything run smoother.

And besides, he smirked to himself as he turned back to the chart he was holding in his hands. She was good at this. She was good at rectals and enemas and diaper changings. Maybe she should have considered being a nurse instead of a surgeon. She seemed to get along with the nurses anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Ugh, today was exhausting," Cristina groaned as she took the seat next to Meredith at the bar.

"How was today different than any other day?" she asked as she threw back another shot of tequila. It was only her third, so she had a while to go before she was drunk.

"It wasn't," Cristina muttered. "I'm just saying that along with every other day, today was exhausting. But hey," she continued, "I should feel grateful." She slapped Meredith playfully on the back. "I'm not the one McDreamy's got on scut monkey patrol."

Meredith grimaced at her. "You know, every good thing is worth working for. Sooner or later I'm going to get to scrub in on something major and then you'll be jealous because _you'll_ be the one on scut monkey patrol and I'll be deccanulating a heart."

Cristina snorted. "Unlikely."

While the two interns were downing their respective drinks, Derek took one step inside the bar and groaned. "What is she doing here?" he whined to Mark.

Mark glanced in the direction Derek was looking and laughed. "You can't expect her to stay that annoying little fourteen-year-old forever. She's old enough to drink now."

"I know, but why is she _here_?" he groaned. "This is _my_ bar, _my_ hangout, and she's ruining it for me. Why does she have to ruin everything?"

Mark rolled his eyes. "Derek, contrary to popular belief in that tiny little brain of yours, you do not own this bar. Meredith has the right to hang out here if she wants."

"Why are you taking her side?" Derek demanded.

"I'm not taking her side. You're just being a jerk. Apparently, keeping Meredith Grey on scut monkey patrol isn't enough for you; the great Derek Shepherd himself wants to sap every amount of pleasure from her life she has left."

The guilty feeling returned. Derek was about to ask his best friend if he thought he was being to harsh on his intern, but when he turned, he found that Mark was no longer there. Instead, he went sauntering up to the bar, cavalierly taking the empty barstool next to Meredith. He watched as his best friend struck up a conversation with his childhood enemy.

He was _so_ taking sides.

"So, Meredith Grey outside the hospital," Mark said playfully as he ran his finger over the rim of his glass of scotch. "This is a first. You look completely bushed. What's it like being everyone's bitch?"

Meredith grimaced at him. "Hell. But I bet you already knew that."

Mark chuckled. "I did indeed."

Joe poured her another tequila shot and Meredith downed it immediately. "As I recall, you were the one that asked me to get a venti frappuccino for you this morning, so you have no qualms whatsoever in making me your bitch too."

He shrugged. "When in Rome—"

"Ah, Dr. Grey," Derek greeted in a pleasant voice. A groan escaped Meredith's throat while Cristina just smirked. "Fancy seeing you here."

In a perfect world, she would have been able to say exactly what she wanted because the two of them were no longer at work. In a perfect world, there would be clearly drawn lines between the hospital and the outside world. But it wasn't a perfect world. And because it wasn't a perfect world, Meredith couldn't tell Derek to shove off and leave her alone. So she settled for a very dry nod after downing another shot.

"Hey guys!" Izzie greeted as she entered the bar. She took the stool next to Cristina and ordered a beer. Then she saw Derek and her smile was immediately replaced with a frigid, very composed expression. "Hello, Dr. Shepherd."

Derek sighed. "Izzie, how long have we known each other?"

She didn't say anything in reply. Instead she turned her attention to Meredith, who just threw back more tequila. After a quick glance at the number of overturned shot glasses, she gave her best friend a wry smile. "Starting early, aren't you?"

"Is that straight up tequila?" Mark asked in amazement.

"Yeah," Izzie said after a swig of beer. "She's hardcore."

Derek shook his head. "I don't think you should. You have work in the morning."

"Why does it matter?" she asked bitterly. "I can still go on coffee runs and fetch labs and do rectals with a hangover."

Mark chuckled, then turned to the bartender. "Hey Joe. Can I get two scotches, single malt? Thanks."

Cristina and Meredith glanced at Mark. "Two drinks?" Cristina asked. "At a time? Wow, you're looking to get wasted."

"Actually, one of those drinks is for me," Derek piped up. Joe slid them from the other end of the bar and they each caught one.

"Aw, how sweet! You're buying drinks for each other," Izzie sighed. "Rock that rainbow power."

Mark grimaced at her. "What happened to that annoying little freshman girl that was obsessed with me so many years ago?"

"She went to med school," Meredith rasped as she wiped the corners of her mouth on the back of her sleeve.

"Okay, this is getting a little too nostalgic for me," Cristina declared. "I'm going home, because I actually have more to do than just attending to code browns." She shot Meredith one last smirk, slid off her barstool and walked out the door.

Izzie took Cristina's abandoned seat and nudged Meredith with her elbow. "So guess what Dr. Burke let me do today!" she declared happily as she started shelling some peanuts.

"Spit shine his shoes?" Meredith asked sardonically.

Izzie stuck her tongue out at the halfway drunk intern like a petulant five-year-old. "No. He let me scrub in on a valve replacement! How cool is that?"

Meredith's face broke into a forced smile. "Congratulations! That's so awesome!"

Unfortunately, an almost lifetime of friendship resulted in the fact that Izzie could tell when Meredith was forcing. Izzie's excitement changed to disappointment and annoyance. "By all means, don't get excited on my behalf."

"No, that's not it," Meredith insisted. "I really am happy for you. I am. I'm just…I guess I'm just jealous too. That you're doing surgical things and I'm…well, I'm not."

Izzie's cool expression melted into a sympathetic smile. "That's not your fault." She shot a glare at Derek, who was all too aware that she was semi-indirectly telling him how she felt about the whole thing.

"Hey, Mark," Derek said very loudly, as if he wanted the whole bar to hear. "Remember that time senior year when Meredith made out with you underneath the bleachers at homecoming?"

The flush that had been slowly building in Meredith's cheeks due to all the alcohol was completely gone. Mark had the decency to look a little sheepish, but he shot a look at his best friend. Izzie was shocked. "Wait…" she said very slowly. "That was the day after I told him I liked him!"

Meredith whipped her head around and widened her blue-green eyes in a silent plea. "Izzie—"

"You made out with the guy that I had a crush on the day after I told him?" she accused, looking and sounding very hurt.

"Izzie, look, I was drunk—"

"So that's where you were!" she shouted, fully realizing the truth of what had happened that night. "You said you went to the—you knew! You knew that I had told him beforehand and you made out with him anyways? And you got drunk _without me_?"

"Izzie, I'm sorry!" Meredith exclaimed miserably. "I'm so sorry! I don't know what I was thinking, I swear! I was drunk and he…he was just sort of there."

Izzie's eyes narrowed. "You made out with him because 'he was just sort of there'?"

"You've gotta believe me, I never meant to hurt you."

"I'm going to go home," Izzie said coolly. "I'll talk to you later." And with that, she slammed a ten on the bar, slid off the barstool, and exited the building.

Mark turned to glare at Derek. "Way to be an asshole, Derek."

The asshole in question merely shrugged with a sheepish smile over his face. In another moment, a fist came flying at him. "Seriously?" Meredith shouted. "Seriously?"

"Ow, hey!" Derek said, holding up his arms in defense from the tiny woman's attack. In all honesty, she couldn't possibly cause him any harm, with her tiny, ineffectual fists, but it was the principle of the matter. "What the hell—stop that!"

"I can't believe you!" she shouted. "It's not enough that you've got me running my feet off everyday for diaper changings and dry cleaning pick-up duty, but you have to go and get the _one person who sympathizes_ to hate me because of some stupid drunken decision from _freshman year_?"

"Oh come on, Meredith, it's not like you didn't see this coming," scoffed Derek. "You didn't think I'd let you get away for all those stupid pranks you pulled when we were younger, did you?"

"Derek, that was _high school_," she growled. "This is the real world now, like you said. Who kissed who doesn't matter anymore, remember?" She pulled a twenty out of her purse and slammed on the counter. "Joe? Could you call me a cab? I'm going home."

Derek watched the slightly inebriated intern get off her barstool with some difficulty, feeling a pit of uneasiness in his stomach, and the uneasiness did not bode well with the guilt. Mark glared at him one last time before taking the girl by the elbow and leading her to the door. He watched his best friend and his worst enemy exit the bar, afterwards sighing and taking a large swig of his drink.

"Sounds like there's a lot of history between the two of you," Joe remarked as he replenished Derek's glass.

The doctor sighed and took another sip. "Yeah…well, more like a lot of hate."

"You know," began the bartender in a very sage voice, "sometimes the least likely people end up as friends. Sometimes as more than friends."

Derek turned his head and glared at the bartender in disbelief. "Joe, this woman ruined my childhood by simply _existing_. What makes you think we'll even get to the friends point, much less anything more?"

Joe shrugged his shoulders and continued wiping down the counter. "Just a feeling. But hey, what do I know? I'm just a bartender."

* * *

Joe's words were still ringing in Derek's ears the next day at work. He had been watching Meredith Grey run around like a little ferret as usual, but not with the usual satisfaction. For some strange reason, the only thing he felt was a pull of something unknown whenever her sparkling blue-green eyes narrowed in disgust, or whenever her delicate eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

Then sometimes, whenever she laughed, she would light up the room with a radiant smile. She didn't laugh very often, considering what she had to do, but whenever she did, the sound sent tingles down his spine. He didn't understand what it was, but he knew now that Meredith Grey was no longer that scrawny little stick from so long ago; she was a woman now.

"Meredith?" Cristina whispered, trying not to look up from the post-op notes she was writing. "Why is McDreamy staring at you?"

Meredith looked up, and McDreamy was indeed staring at her. In response, she narrowed her eyes and shot him the dirtiest look she could, but it didn't seem to faze him. In fact, she doubted he noticed at all. "I don't know," she whispered back, a little weirded out by the intensity in his blue eyes.

Cristina snuck a glance and smirked. "He looks like he wants to eat you."

Meredith grimaced at her friend. "That's disgusting."

At that moment, Izzie breezed by, a stack of charts in her arms. "Hey, Mer, can you put these away for me?" she asked briskly. "Thanks."

"Iz—" Meredith began, but she was cut off.

"No, Mer. You don't get to talk to me until I forgive you."

As Izzie walked off, George and Karev came up to Cristina and Meredith. "What's with Dr. Model?" Karev asked, staring a little too intensely at Izzie's retreating back.

Meredith rolled her eyes. "Don't call her that," she snapped, knowing exactly how sensitive Izzie was on the subject. "And she's upset with me."

"Why? What'd you do?" George asked.

"It was freshman year!" Meredith burst out in frustration. "I made out with Mark Sloan freshman year underneath the bleachers at homecoming when I was drunk. Izzie had a thing for him and I knew it and…I was just…I was just being a bitch."

Karev raised his eyebrows. "How did she find out?"

Meredith rolled her eyes. "Stupid Dr. Shep—"

"Dr. Grey," Derek said as he walked up to the group. George and Karev stopped leaning against the counter and Cristina coughed. Meredith blatantly ignored the fact that he existed; he was the reason why she and Izzie were currently not talking.

"Dr. Grey," he said again. She knew he was watching her intently, waiting for her to look up, and it was only out of obligation that she, with a tired sigh, looked up at him. "Dr. Scheer has a tracheotomy this afternoon, and he wants an intern watching. Would you like to scrub in?"

Meredith looked like she didn't quite believe what was going on. "Excuse me?" she asked very stupidly. Cristina's pen was no longer moving; instead, she was watching, waiting in anticipation to hear Meredith's response.

"Would you like to scrub in?" Derek repeated very slowly.

Meredith's eyebrows shot up. "Okay, Dr. Shepherd. What's the catch?"

He sighed in exasperation, beginning to regret that he even suggested it. "There is no catch. My colleagues seem to think I'm being too hard on you, and you're going to have to learn something at one point or another, because this is a learning hospital. So are you in or are you out?"

She still didn't look as if she quite believed him. He sighed again and said, "Okay, look. I'm trying to make it up to you for putting you on scut monkey patrol and making Izzie upset with you, okay? That's my ulterior motive. Are you happy now?"

She observed him a little while longer, but then she shook her head. "No. I have a lot of work to finish up here. Why don't you let Izzie do it?"

Her friends' jaws all dropped open when they heard the words coming out of Meredith's mouth. In all honesty, Derek was surprised as well, but he simply nodded and let it be so.

**A/N - Okay, so I know that Derek's been a total dickwad and that he really needs to get over himself, but you have to realize that Meredith made this guy's childhood absolute _hell_. She did everything in the book and then some. So this is a really intense, deep-seated hate that they have going on. Or is it hate...? LOL, if you want more, check out my blog!**

**As always, be sure to review!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 **

"The tracheotomy was amazing!" Izzie exclaimed that night when their shifts had ended. "Just watching Dr. Scheer knowing the next move for everything…I mean just…just wow."

"Yeah, yeah, shut up," Cristina shot. She was still incredibly miffed that Barbie got to scrub in instead of her. Granted, she realized that it wasn't her decision, but that was so not the point.

"Did anything happen? Did he crash or whatever?" George asked excitedly. He and Meredith were the only interns that weren't able to watch in the gallery.

"For a moment his pressure started to drop, but then Dr. Scheer just started giving orders and he sounded so calm that I didn't feel very nervous. Then the guy came back and he finished with the tracheotomy."

"Man, I wish I was there to watch it," George said wistfully.

At that moment, Meredith walked into the locker room, dragging her feet the whole way there. Izzie's smile immediately disappeared and she turned to her locker to fiddle around with her possessions until her best friend had left. Meredith had realized that she wasn't ready to talk, so she sighed and made her way to her own locker. After a very tense silence, Meredith was the first to break it. "So," she began tentatively, "I heard you got to scrub in on a tracheotomy."

"Yeah," Izzie replied shortly, checking her pager.

Meredith sighed again and nodded. "Okay then. Well, I guess I'll see you at home then." And without another word, she got her things together and walked out of the locker room, headed for Joe's right across the street. If any night was a night for tequila, this was definitely it.

"Hey, Mer!" Joe greeted. "Usual?"

"You are a good man," she said gratefully as she slid onto her barstool. The moment Joe finished pouring the tequila into the shot glass, Meredith gulped it down.

The kindly bartender raised his eyebrows. "Wow. What happened now?"

It seemed lately that sighing was her thing. She couldn't stop sighing, and she was doing so again right now. "Izzie stopped talking to me," she admitted. "And I guess I deserve it. You see, I made out with the guy she had a crush on in high school. And it wasn't just a crush, 'cause she had a serious thing for the guy. And I knew about it and…and I made out with him under the bleachers at homecoming. This was in our freshman year in high school and it shouldn't have been that big of a deal, but I didn't tell her and she's hurt and betrayed and I was a bitch and…" Another sigh. "God, I feel like shit."

Joe nodded quietly, listening to the tiny little doctor ramble on about her best friend. "Tell you what," he said as he poured another shot, "this one's on the house."

"Thank you," she said gratefully before tossing back the shot.

"How did she find out anyway?" he asked.

A scowl made its way onto Meredith's face. "Stupid Dr. Shepherd told her. They shouldn't be calling him McDreamy, they should be calling him McJackass."

Joe chuckled. "Speak of the devil," he mused as McJackass himself took the barstool next to her.

"Hey Joe," he said cheerfully. "Could I get a—"

"Single malt scotch, coming right up," Joe finished for him with a smile.

"You're a good man, Joe." Then he turned his attention to the blonde woman on his right who was doing her best to ignore him. "How's your evening, Meredith?"

"It _was_ fine before you got here," she grumbled, wishing she could make tequila appear into her empty shot glass with her mind powers alone.

He sighed. "Meredith, I was offering a truce back at the hospital, you know," he informed her in that annoying, know-it-all kind of McDreamy way that made him even more of a McJackass. "I don't want to fight with you anymore."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Excuse me, _Doctor_ Shepherd, but don't mind me if I'm more than a little pissed off at you."

"What?" he asked in shock. "I asked if you wanted to scrub into a tracheotomy, but you let your best friend take it instead of you. What do you want, Meredith?"

"I wouldn't have given her the surgery instead if _you_ hadn't been acting like McJackass and told her about some stupid drunken mistake I made _freshman year of high school_," she shot with as much venom as she could. "So you'll understand if I don't trust you."

"God, Meredith, you can be such a bitch, you know that?" he exclaimed. Immediately, he knew it was the exact _wrong_ thing to say, but it was out before he could stop himself.

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Well then, Dr. Shepherd," she began in a very prim, very dignified voice that hoped to cover the sting of his words, "if that is really the way you feel, I will leave you now. Goodnight." And with that final word, she pulled some money out of her purse and slammed it on the counter before sliding off the barstool and striding out of the building for the second night in a row. Honestly, Derek could have kicked himself for being such an idiot.

Joe watched the intern saunter out of the bar with as much dignity as she could muster.

"Brilliant move, Doc," he said very sarcastically. Derek rolled his eyes and took a long swig of his drink, choosing not to respond.

* * *

Meredith looked up from the book she was reading to see her best friend walking through the front door with a very somber, angry expression on her face. Izzie didn't even say a word as she brushed through the living room and straight into the kitchen. Meredith could hear the clink of the refrigerator door opening. "What happened to all the beer?" Izzie demanded.

Meredith sighed. "I drank it all."

Izzie walked into the living room and glared at her. "Seriously? I bought that beer two nights ago, and you finished it already? What is wrong with you, Meredith? Why do you always have to take what's mine?"

Of course she wasn't talking about just beer. "I'm sorry, Izzie," Meredith said very quietly. "I'm sorry about everything, but I don't feel like fighting with you. Not tonight."

The truth was, she was still hurt from Derek's words earlier in the bar. She knew she was selfish, she knew she acted like a bitch more often than not, but she didn't need Derek Shepherd to tell her. She didn't need him to make her feel more like crap than she already did because she knew. And Izzie, standing there, angry for some bitchy thing she did freshman year of high school didn't help things.

Of course, Izzie didn't listen. She never did. "God, Mer! Why can't you just stick to what's yours? Why do you have to have everything? Why do you have to be so freaking selfish?"

There it was. It was what Meredith had been waiting for; the ever-present insult that would cut to the core every single time. Instead of giving a proper answer, she shrugged, got off the couch and up the stairs. But Izzie wasn't having that.

"Meredith Grey, you are _not_ avoiding this!" she shouted as she ran up the stairs after her. "The world doesn't revolve around you, you know! Think about someone else and their feelings, _for once_!"

Meredith struggled to hold back the disgusting tears that were clouding her vision. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "I don't know what to say, Izzie, except that I'm sorry."

"God, Meredith!" Izzie shouted in frustration. "I can't talk to you when you're like this!" And without another word, she shoved her way past her and into her room, making sure to slam the door very loudly behind her.

Leaving Meredith to stare at the door, tears welling in her eyes.

The next day she woke up with puffy red skin lining her eyes which were not the usual shining green color that interns were supposed to have. No, they were dull and lifeless, completely exhausted and ready for a break.

Derek visibly noticed this and felt the strange need to reach out for her. He watched her sadly as she performed her tasks with less than the usual fervor and only snapped out of his daze until someone shouted, "We have incoming!"

Immediately, everyone in the vicinity jumped into action. Everyone except Meredith.

"Dr. Grey!" Derek shouted. "What are you doing just standing there?"

She immediately jumped to attention and ran towards the entrance to meet the paramedics. "What do we have?" Derek heard her ask in a very professional, very doctor-like voice.

"Gunshot victim," the paramedic replied. "Domestic dispute. Shot twice, one in the abdomen and one head. No exit wounds to speak of."

Derek rushed to help roll the gurney down the hallway. "Grey, page Dr. Burke and Dr. Hamilton. We need to get this guy into surgery."

She nodded once and ran to go complete the tasks assigned her. "When you're finished paging them, you can go ahead and scrub in."

Derek watched excitement flash across her face for the briefest moment, but vanish almost as quickly as it came. "Yes sir," she murmured and hurried off.

* * *

Fifteen hours later, Meredith Grey was scrubbing out of her first ever surgery.

"That was amazing!" she gushed as she washed her hands. "The rush, the excitement, the adrenaline…I'm just…I'm just blown away. I mean, who thought surgery was like that? The adrenaline just pumping in your veins, the intensity of the whole thing. Wow…" She sighed as she turned the faucet off. "Medical school was never like that."

Derek chuckled. "Surgery's a lot different than medical school, that's for sure. I never got to extract a bullet from a guy's head in med school."

Meredith turned to her superior and gave him the first grin for the past two days. "Thank you for letting me scrub in. I really appreciate it."

Derek shook his head. "No problem. I was being to harsh on you, you deserved it."

She nodded once and threw the paper towels she used to dry her arms with in the trash receptacle. "I'll see you later then, Dr. Shepherd." And without another word, she walked out of the scrub room, leaving Derek alone to ponder the strange sensations that roiled in his stomach during the course of their conversation.

The moment Meredith walked out of the scrub room, Izzie practically attacked her.

"Omigosh! Your first surgery!" the blonde intern shouted jubilantly as she threw her arms around her best friend. "I watched you in the gallery and you were amazing!"

After a moment of shocked silence, Meredith tentatively reciprocated the hug. "Does this mean we're not fighting anymore?"

Izzie giggled as she pulled away. "Oh, come on, Mer. You know I can't ever stay upset with you. You're my person, remember?"

Meredith smiled back. "How could I forget?"

They exchanged hugs of resolution and forgiveness one more time.

"So," Izzie began, "what was it like?"

"Amazing," Meredith replied, unable to find adequate words to accurately describe the experience inside the OR. "It was just this intense, amazing rush. I never thought surgery could be like that, you know?"

Izzie chuckled. "Oh, I know. I know. So…" she trailed off, not-so-subtly segueing into the next topic of discussion, "what's going on between you and McDreamy?"

"What? Who's--oh, right," Meredith replied with a quick eye roll when she remembered what her best friend and Cristina Yang decided to name her childhood nemesis. "There's nothing going on between the two of us."

"Really?" Izzie asked skeptically. "Then why did he let you scrub in on that surgery? I thought he was supposed to be letting his stupid childhood grudge against you affect your career."

Meredith shrugged. "I guess he felt guilty. He told me he was sorry in the scrub room afterwards. And in all honesty, he really should be. I never did anything bad enough to warrant scut monkey patrol for the first two weeks of my internship."

"Uh-huh," Izzie clicked her tongue. "I think he's got a thing for you, Mer."

Meredith shot Izzie a look that stated very clearly what she thought of her best friend's mental health. "You're joking, right?"

"No," Izzie replied simply. "He was watching you all throughout the surgery, you know. Sometimes out of the corner of his eyes and sometimes he was just blatantly staring at you."

Meredith snorted at the thought. "Whatever. He was probably just making sure that I wasn't screwing up."

"I don't think so. I really think he has a thing for you."

"That is disgusting on so many levels, Iz," she said lightly. "Hey, let's stop talking about it. There are drinks at Joe's with our names on 'em. Come on," she said as she took her newly reconciled best friend's hand, "my treat."

* * *

"So," Burke began in a tone that clearly meant Derek was in for it. "What was all that about?"

"What are you talking about?" Derek asked as he filled out the paperwork for the surgery they just got out of.

"I was talking about the exchanging of forbidden glances between you and Meredith Grey," he said. "You were practically shooting sparks out of your eyes, your gaze was that intense."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Derek scoffed. He was _not_ staring at Meredith Grey that intensely.

Then it dawned on Burke. "You have a thing for her, don't you?"

Derek shot his friend a look of exasperation. "What in the world are you talking about? I do not have a thing for Meredith Grey. She's an intern. And besides," he added, "she's always been the annoying little girl next door that liked hitting me with her stupid jump rope. I could never have a thing for her."

Burke wasn't having that. "You know, hate isn't the opposite of love."

Derek rolled his eyes and went back to his paperwork. Unfortunately, he couldn't properly concentrate because his friend's words were still ringing in his mind even after he walked away.

**A/N - So begins Derek's self doubt.**

**What do you guys think? Please review and tell me!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

"Hold the elevator please!"

Derek reached forward to stop the doors from closing to let the person on the elevator. His face froze when he saw Meredith Grey rush in.

"Thanks," she said breathlessly as she reached over to the control panel to push her floor button.

"No problem," he replied quietly.

The first few moments of the elevator ride was silent. Then, as Derek opened his mouth to speak, Meredith cut him to the chase. "Look," she began, "I don't know how things are exactly between the two of us, so let's not do this weird, awkward thing between hate and friendship okay? Let's just agree to be professionals and talk to each other only when we have to."

Derek frowned. "That's going to be kind of difficult, considering I'm supposed to be your teacher and all."

"Being my resident doesn't require all that much talking," Meredith said simply. "You can just give me my assignments and we'll stay away from each other."

"Why do we have to stay away from each other?" he asked. "Why can't we just be professional friends?"

She turned to him with raised eyebrows. "Professional friends? How can I be friends with the guy that used to put spiders in my hair?"

"The same way I can be friends with the girl that took the wet paint sign off the bench right before I sat on it in my best Sunday clothes."

Meredith smirked as the elevator doors opened. "We'll see."

The moment she walked off the elevator, Izzie greeted her with a small wave. "Okay, so I'm thinking that during lunch we can go over to Joe's and do the whole after fight ritual thing. Whaddya think?"

"Cool," Meredith replied as she took a sip from her friend's coffee cup. "So, you'll never guess what Derek Shepherd just suggested on the elevator."

Izzie looked up with interest. "What? What did he suggest?"

"He suggested that we could be friends," Meredith informed her with a complacent smirk. "Well, no actually, he didn't say friends. He said 'professional friends'."

"Seriously?" Izzie asked in amusement. "He actually said 'professional friends'?"

"Yeah. I mean, how weird is that? Who says, 'professional friends'? Why can't he just say colleagues like the rest of us?"

Izzie laughed. "Does this mean your off scut monkey patrol?"

"I hope so," she sighed. "If I have to do one more rectal, I think I might scream."

* * *

"Wait, so you actually suggested the words, 'professional friends'?" Mark asked his best friend later that day after Derek told him about the elevator encounter. "The words 'professional friends' actually came out of your mouth? While talking to Meredith Grey?"

"Try not to sound too surprised," Derek murmured under his breath. Was it really that hard to believe that he had finally gotten over that stupid childhood grudge?

"I just can't believe that you've finally gotten over that stupid childhood grudge," Mark said, as if reading Derek's mind. "You don't have a thing for her, do you?"

"No!" Derek exclaimed, tired of people assuming that he did. "Why in the world would I have a thing for Meredith Grey?"

"Because she's hot," Mark said slowly, as if the answer was painfully obvious.

Derek rolled his eyes. "No, Mark. Just because someone's hot doesn't mean that I have a thing for her, okay? I'm just tired of fighting her. And I don't want my interns to hate me."

Mark eyed him suspiciously. "Well then, if you're not interested, do you mind if I asked her on a date? 'Cause if you're not going to go after that, then I might as well."

There was honestly no reason why Derek should have felt the need to punch him. And no, those were not fits of rage or jealousy. He was just worried on Meredith's behalf, because Mark wasn't exactly the monogamous type. "What happened to that OB/GYN?" Derek finally asked.

"Too much baggage," Mark replied flippantly. "But I don't think Mer's looking for a serious relationship. Maybe we could go out for dinner or something," he thought to himself quietly.

Derek shrugged, trying to pretend like he didn't care. "Whatever. It doesn't matter to me. You're a grown man and she's a grown woman. The two of you can do whatever you want."

Later that day, he was regretting his words. Right before lunch, he saw Meredith standing at the nurse's station, filling out some charts when Mark walked up to her. He watched the scene with growing anger as Mark pulled on all reserves of his intense charm.

"So," Mark said cavalierly, "I guess Derek's got you off scut monkey patrol."

"Yeah," Meredith replied, not bothering to look up. "And before you ask, Mark, the answer is no. You've already gotten me in enough trouble with Izzie and I don't plan on getting into any more."

Mark grinned widely. "Aww, come on. We had fun your freshman year, remember?"

Derek felt as if he had been punched in the stomach when he heard. Had they done more than just making out? He felt indignant at the thought.

Meredith snorted as she slammed the chart closed. "Forget it, Mark. I've got taste now, and you're definitely not my type."

"Ooh, ouch," Mark sighed. "Since when do you have a type?"

"I've always had a type."

"Would your type happen to be tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed surgeons?" Mark muttered under his breath. Meredith looked up in shock and stared at him.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Mark shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh…nothing. Just talking to myself." Then he winked at Meredith and began to back away from the nurse's station. "Don't worry, Meredith. I'll get you to say yes soon enough."

Meredith snorted and stalked off in the opposite direction, silently thinking to herself that the day she said yes to Mark Sloan was the day Derek Shepherd kissed her.

* * *

"Dr. Grey, I need you to order some overnight labs for Mr. Fitzgerald," Derek told her as he handed her his chart. "You're on-call tonight, right?"

Meredith sighed, but nodded. "No, but I can be."

Derek's eyebrows shot up. "I hope I didn't ruin any plans that you might have had for tonight."

She shook her head quickly. "No, you didn't. I was just hoping--never mind."

"What?" Derek asked curiously. "Do you have a boyfriend waiting for you at home?"

Meredith snorted. "Are you kidding me? I'm a surgical intern, when would I possibly have time to find a boyfriend, much less keep him?"

He chuckled. "It wouldn't be unheard of. Mark had several girlfriends when he was an intern."

"Psh," she scoffed, "Mark's idea of a girlfriend is a one-week stand." Then she glanced up at her superior with a questioning look. "What about you, Dr. Shepherd? Do you have a girlfriend at home?"

He looked up at Meredith and felt a smirk pull at the corners of his lips. "Why are you so interested, Dr. Grey?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not, but while we're on the subject of our personal lives, I just thought I could make small talk or whatever."

Derek grinned. "No, I don't have a girlfriend."

Meredith nodded. "Good for you." But for some strange reason, her stomach did a celebratory flip, and she didn't like it.

"I dunno, it just might be that girls are too demanding," Derek went on to elaborate his frustrations with the fairer sex. "I mean, all the girls I've met lately just want so much and I really can't give it to them right now. I'm a fifth year resident, you know? My career is taking off and I can't slow down at this point."

Meredith stopped what she was doing and looked up in surprise. "Seriously?" she asked. "You're seriously telling me about your love life?"

He smirked. "I'm not telling you about my love life. I'm complaining about how crazy you women are."

"We are not crazy," she said indignantly. "You just don't understand."

Derek scoffed. "I'm a doctor, of course I understand."

Meredith snorted as she began to walk away. "No you don't. But hey, if it makes you feel better, then keep thinking that."

At that moment, a gruff looking biker with a neon green Mohawk came tearing through the hospital. "Help! I need a doctor! My friend's in trouble!"

Without another thought, Meredith and Derek both took off running.

"My friend," the guy continued as he led the way to the waiting room, "he was in the bike race a couple of days ago, and then he just--"

"Viper!" Meredith cried out in surprise when she saw the guy slouching in one of the waiting room chairs unconscious.

"You know him?" the friend asked in surprise.

"Somebody get a gurney!" Derek shouted as he crouched down next to Meredith. "What happened?"

"He came to the hospital a few days ago," she began to explain as she pulled out her pen light and began flashing it in his eyes. "He fell off his bike and hit his head, but he said he was fine."

The gurney came by and with the help of several burly nurses, they managed to get Viper on the bed. "Why didn't you take him to CT?" demanded Derek. "He could have had extensive brain damage!"

"He wouldn't let me," Meredith shot back. "He said he had to get back to his race."

Viper's friend was beside himself with anxiety. "What's going on?" he panted as he ran to catch up with the gurney. "What are you guys doing? Is Viper going to be okay?"

"Page neuro. We need to get this guy into surgery immediately."

"Dr. Shepherd, am I scrubbing in?"

Derek shot his intern a look of disgust. "No, Dr. Grey, you are not scrubbing in. You failed to properly tend to the patient's needs. You should have taken him to CT the moment he walked through those hospital doors. You are his doctor, you should have known better."

"But--"

"No buts," he said firmly. "Page neuro and take him to CT. When you're done with that, go explain to his friend what's going on and call the family. You're not scrubbing in on anything today, Dr. Grey."

If looks could kill, Dr. Shepherd would have been dead at that moment. Unfortunately, since Meredith was still unable to shoot lasers out of her eyes, Derek walked off while she continued to push the gurney to CT. Afterwards, she grudgingly pulled out her pager and sent the message to Dr. Hamilton, the head of the neurosurgical department.

"What do we have?" the doctor asked as he walked into the testing room.

Meredith pointed to the computer screen. "Aneurism," she replied as she pointed to the fuzzy spot. "He must have burst it a few days ago when he fell off his bike."

"He's been bleeding ever since," murmured Dr. Hamilton to himself as he looked down at the patient's chart. "Okay. Get him to surgery immediately. While you're at it, page Dr. Shepherd. I want him with me on this one."

The intern quelled the growl that threatened to erupt from her vocal chords. "Yes sir," she muttered as she walked out of the room to page her superior.

When she was finished writing up the notes for Viper's charts, she went to the waiting room to talk to his friend.

The moment he spotted her, he jumped up from his seat and ran over to her. "How is he?" he asked. "Is he alright? What happened?"

Meredith took in a deep breath before she began. "Viper has what we call an aneurism in his brain. That's basically a swollen blood vessel that can cause a lot of damage if it bursts. When he fell off his bike a few days ago, the aneurism burst which was what caused him to black out today. He's been bleeding out ever since."

"But he'll be fine, right?"

"They're taking him into surgery as we speak. I'll come and tell you the news as it happens."

In a fit of sudden gratitude, Viper's friend stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her tiny frame. "Thank you so much," he whispered.

Unsure of what to do, Meredith tentatively reciprocated the hug. "Don't worry," she said awkwardly as she gave him a few pats on the back. "We're going to do everything we can to help your friend. And besides, Viper's a fighter. He'll make it through just fine."

"Ugh, I just can't believe I let him be so stupid!" he wept. Meredith's discomfort increased tenfold as the man began to sob into her shoulder, dripping tears onto her scrubs. "If only I had gotten him to the hospital earlier, then maybe he would have--"

"It's not your fault," she insisted, hoping that he would let go of her soon. "It's not your fault that his aneurism burst."

"Dr. Grey!"

Meredith jumped as she ripped herself from his grip. She whipped her head around and found herself staring into the menacing, blazing blue glare of a very, very pissed off Dr. Shepherd.

**A/N - You didn't think they'd be friends all of a sudden, did you? Psh, they're too stubborn for that.**

**Be sure to check out my blog (listed as the homepage on my profile) for stuff on this chapter. And as always, don't forget to leave a review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

There was absolutely no reason whatsoever that Dr. Derek Shepherd should have been so angry that he caught his intern comforting the friend of a patient through less conventional means other than complete concern for the reputation of the hospital. And there was absolutely no reason he should have felt the need to pull the guy off her and punch the living daylights out of him.

But that didn't stop him.

The moment Meredith leapt away from Viper's friend, Derek strode across the fairly empty waiting room and clamped onto her upper arm with a vice-like grip. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded angrily as he led her away from Viper's friend who was now blowing his nose in an outdated copy of _Seventeen_ Magazine.

"He just started hugging me," replied Meredith breathlessly as she stared into the shocked and angry blue eyes of her superior, feeling a bit miffed herself. Why was he so angry at her? It's not like she _wanted_ him to hug her.

"Dr. Grey, I have caught you making out with a patient prior to this," Derek began with his teeth clenched in order to keep the images of some tattooed freak with a Mohawk hugging her from overwhelming him. "Now I see you hugging the friend of the _same_ patient you made out with, who by the way, is bleeding out at the brain and might possibly suffer severe brain damage and even death because you neglected to properly care for him. I hope you realize that you are in _a lot_ of trouble right now."

"He signed an AMA form!" she shouted. "He legally waived his rights!"

In all actuality, Derek knew this. Meredith was really much more responsible than he would grudgingly admit, but that didn't mean anything to him at the moment. The only thing that he could really focus on was his anger, his direction-less anger that threatened to consume everything in its path.

It was very lucky for Dr. Shepherd that his pager went off at that moment; otherwise, Meredith would have lost all remnants of self-control, inevitably ending with her slapping her superior across his furious--albeit ruggedly handsome--face. He was deliberately letting his grudge and his past cloud his judgment. It really shouldn't have surprised her; he'd been doing the exact same thing since she walked through the damn hospital doors, but for Christ's sake, she thought he got over it.

"We'll talk about this later," he told her sternly, looking up from his pager.

"Fine," Meredith spat.

The two parted ways angrily, much to the bemusement of the other inhabitants of the hospital. The nurses, especially, had been watching the heated exchange with much interest and had been quite disappointed that it hadn't ended with a little more…bang, for lack of a more tactful word.

Meredith marched off to find Dr. Sloan, with the vague idea of asking him for something to do. If she stayed around here much longer, she was pretty sure she would have lost it and punched the nearest object, and heaven help her if it were an actual person. Trapped in a blind rage, she found the handsome doctor flirting with the nurse manning the desk.

Mark felt the brusque tap on his shoulder and felt a stab of annoyance. He was starting to really get in the zone as far as flirting was concerned and whoever was tapping him was seriously cramping his style. Why couldn't whoever it was just have paged him? Then it would have given the nurse the impression that he was a busy, wanted man and would have made her even hotter for him. Unable to find an excuse to ignore the tapper, Mark turned around to find the blazing blue-green eyes of one Meredith Grey.

"Dr. Grey!" Mark cried out. "What can I do for you?"

"I need to do something," she declared, keeping her fists balled tightly. "I need something to do before I lose control and hit something."

Mark raised an eyebrow at the agitated intern. She certainly looked like she was about to hit something. He wasn't quite sure if the hit itself would make much of an impact, but many years of experience had told him the smaller ones were more powerful than one expected.

"Well, there is _something_ you could do," he said, being sure to emphasize the word "something" with extra care.

Meredith caught on rather quickly and threw him a sharp glare. "Mark Sloan, you know me better than that. Now assign me to something; make me run labs, fetch coffee, an enema, a rectal exam, anything before I kick you in the shins."

He chuckled at the image. "Actually, Dr. Grey, I don't know what you had in mind, but I actually wanted to take you on a special case of mine."

The words "special case" lit a fire in Meredith's brain and managed to quell her need to destroy. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Thank you, Dr. Sloan," she said breathlessly. "I can't begin to tell you how much I really need this."

"Don't worry about it," he told the tiny intern. "I have a feeling."

As they walked off down the hall together, Mark chanced a glance at the woman walking at his side. "So you want to tell me why you're so pissed off?"

"I'm not," she bit quickly. "No. Maybe. I don't know."

"Oookay…" Mark drawled out the word. "Want to tell me about the uncertainty?"

"Derek's being a pain in the ass," she replied through clenched teeth.

"Well, I figured _that_," he said in exasperation. "I'm just wondering what he did to get you so worked up now."

"He's letting some stupid childhood grudge getting in the way of his professionalism. Not like that should be any shock, he's been doing it since he found out I was his intern. And there I was, thinking that the bastard actually changed his mind, but no. No, he decides to take five million steps backward and blame me for Viper's stupid aneurism!"

Mark could recognize a female in full ranting mode from a mile away. He also knew that the best way to stop the ranting was to head it off early, but it was already too late. Meredith was getting in her stride.

"And it's not like I _wanted_ Viper to kiss me! He just turned me around and laid his mouth on mine! It wasn't my fault, I didn't ask for it! He's making me out to be some kind of slut!"

And among the many things Dr. Sloan knew about women and their ranting was that quite often, the ranting made no sense whatsoever. Now was certainly no exception, but this seemed to bring on a new definition for confusion altogether.

Mark reached his patient's room with a great deal of relief just as he was beginning to regret ever asking Meredith what was wrong. "Ah, Mrs. Pierret!" he cried happily, clinging onto the last bit of sanity within arms reach. "Mrs. Pierret, I'd like to introduce to you one of the most brilliant interns in this hospital, Dr. Grey. Dr. Grey, this is Eileen Pierret who was admitted last night for severe burns on her arms."

Eileen Pierret was a cheerful woman in her mid-thirties. She nodded her acknowledgement to Meredith because her arms were in hanging, suspended above the bed to avoid contact with the burned skin. "It's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too," Meredith replied, immediately adopting a smile and a professional manner. "What happened?"

"I was being careless," Mrs. Pierret replied. "I accidentally spilled a whole kettle of boiling water over my arms, and I still don't really know why!" she chuckled. "I'm so clumsy sometimes. My husband wonders how I'm still alive."

"She's got first degree burns all over her arms," Mark informed her. "We're hoping to do a skin graft."

Meredith's eyes widened at his words. "A skin graft?"

He nodded, pleased at the intern's obvious excitement. "Yes. Do you want in?"

Her entire face lit up. All infuriating thoughts of Derek were immediately forgotten. "Do I want in? Are you kidding?"

Dr. Sloan chuckled. "Well, Mrs. Pierret, Dr. Grey here has just been assigned to your case. Don't worry though, she's a very capable intern, and I assure you, you will be in very good hands."

Meanwhile, Dr. Shepherd was in a scrub room, washing his hands and getting ready to scrub in on the brain surgery with Dr. Hamilton. It wasn't exactly advisable for him to be going into surgery, especially since he was still seeing red, but cutting things open was the only thing that he could think of to keep the images of Meredith hugging and making out with random strangers at bay.

Several hours later, Derek was scrubbing out of the surgery, all unsavory thoughts of his tiny intern gone. Dr. Hamilton managed to stop the bleeding and cut out the rest of the aneurism with no damage to the rest of the brain. Viper would make a full recovery and return to his dangerous hobby soon enough.

"Good work, Dr. Shepherd," Hamilton said with a paternal smile to his favorite resident. "Keep up the work and Richard will name you Chief Resident before long."

Derek chuckled. "Thanks, Dr. Hamilton."

He walked out of the scrub room and made a beeline to the nurse's station to write up the post-op notes. He looked up from the charts for a moment and found Meredith striding down the hall, enjoying a seemingly funny conversation with Dr. Sloan.

And suddenly all the images held at bay during the surgery came rushing back.

"Dr. Grey, I need you to inform Viper's friend that he'll make a full recovery," Derek told her coolly. "And when you're done with that, you can do discharge."

"Oh, sorry Dr. Shepherd," Mark said amiably with that damnably charming smile. "I've got Dr. Grey with me on a skin grafting. Why don't you get one of your other interns to do it?"

"Dr. Grey is not allowed inside an OR," Derek shot. "She failed to properly--"

"He signed an AMA form!" shouted Meredith. "Do you want me to get it and Xerox it? Do I have to staple it to your forehead for you to understand? I _did_ properly inform him of the risk of leaving the hospital, but he didn't care! He said he wanted to finish the race!"

"That's it, Dr. Grey," Derek growled. "I have no choice but to--"

"Dr. Shepherd," a cool voice called from down the hall. The three of them turned to see who had spoken and found--with varying degrees of surprise--Richard Webber standing in the middle of the hallway with his arms crossed and a stern, reprimanding look on his face. "I want to see you in my office. You too, Dr. Grey."

The two of them shot each other a look of pure loathing and wordlessly followed Richard Webber down the hall and up the escalator to the Chief of Surgery's corner office. When they reached the inside, they took their seats without invitation and refused to look at each other.

"What," began Richard in a very strained voice, as if he were trying to hide exactly how angry he was with the two of them, "is going on between the two of you?"

"He's being unfair!" Meredith shouted just as Derek cried, "She's making out with patients!"

Richard held his hand up to silence them. "One at a time. Derek, you go first."

Meredith scowled at the two men as Derek triumphantly began. "I caught her making out with a patient last week," he announced. "This patient had fallen off his bike and hit his head. She failed to take him to CT at the time and he came back today with a burst aneurism. Not to mention she practically spooned the guy's friend!"

"I did not 'spoon' the guy's friend!" she spat contemptuously. "That's ridiculous!"

Richard turned to his stepdaughter. "Meredith, is this true?"

"No! Viper said he had to get back to his race and signed an AMA form! Then he came back and when I was telling his friend about the surgery, he just launched himself at me! I never spooned with anyone!"

"But did you kiss a patient?"

A blush rushed into her cheeks as she reluctantly nodded. "But he kissed me first," she said quickly.

Richard sighed and rubbed his face tiredly. "Meredith, you're a grown woman for God's sake. No one cares who kissed who anymore."

Derek threw her a complacent smirk as Meredith glowered.

"However, Derek, if this Viper guy really did sign an AMA form, you can't punish her for not taking him to CT."

It was Meredith's turn to smirk.

"But she can't go around kissing patients and hugging their friends!" Derek complained, as if determined to find a flaw through all the logic.

"From the sound of it, his friend was probably in distress," Webber said patiently. "You can't fault her for comforting him. Honestly, Derek, I think you're being a little unreasonable. I see no reason to bar her from the OR when she didn't do anything wrong."

"But--she--kissed--and--"

"Meredith, did you kiss back?"

"No," she replied quickly.

"She's just saying that!" Derek cried in desperation. "Of course she didn't kiss back, that's exactly what she would say!"

"Derek, enough," Richard said, dropping all pretense of patience. "I am sick and tired of hearing the gossip flying about the two of you. I am putting an end to this nonsense. You will find a way to resolve your issues."

The two of them simultaneously crossed their arms and glared at their superior. "And how do you propose to do that?" asked Derek.

"I am making Meredith nothing less than your shadow," the chief replied ruthlessly. "You will be assigned the same shifts. She will be assigned to every case you are assigned to, she will follow you wherever you go, even for lunch. You will be civilized, you will be polite. You will say good morning to each other when you get to work and you will say goodbye before you go home. When one of you so much as sneezes, the other will be there to say 'bless you' with a Kleenex in hand. You will spend every moment of your time in the hospital no more than five yards away from each other, and you will do this for a month. If I find no progress or that you have broken these rules, I will extend the deadline. I don't expect the two of you to be best friends, but you _will_ respect each other. Do I make myself clear?"

Derek's jaw clenched as Meredith scowled. "Perfectly," they replied.

Richard nodded. "Good. You begin tomorrow."

**A/N - I'm sooo sorry that this took me so long. A lot of stuff has been happening and I have to warn you that updates might be a little scarce for the next couple of weeks. But around the end of August, I should be able to update frequently again. And I also wanted to let you guys know that I am _not_ giving up on this story. I'm so far from giving up.**

**As always, please review! I'm as much of a review whore as ever.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Meredith was standing next to the coffee stand the next day, scowling at everyone that walked through the door that wasn't Derek Shepherd. She considered for a brief moment coming to work drunk just to piss him off and to help her deal with him better, but losing her license to practice medicine wasn't worth it.

Derek walked through the automatic doors and bit back a sigh when he saw his least favorite intern leaning against the coffee stand with her eyes narrowed in his direction. This was going to be the longest month of his life.

"Dr. Grey," acknowledged Derek with a small nod.

"Dr. Shepherd," she said just as coolly.

She followed him silently to the elevator. As they waited for the doors to open, Derek turned to her and asked, "I trust you had a good night's rest last night?"

Meredith raised her eyebrows. "Seriously? You're asking about how well I slept?"

The sigh that he managed to suppress upon entrance of the hospital escaped his mouth. "Dr. Grey, I'm only trying to be polite."

She snorted, but didn't comment.

Truth of the matter was, he realized that perhaps he had been overreacting a little the other day. And in the end, he knew that Meredith would have made sure that Viper signed an AMA form before she let him out of the hospital. She wasn't that stupid.

But he wasn't going to admit it to her.

The elevator doors opened and they both stepped in. "Don't take forever to get changed or anything," warned Derek. "I want to get started on rounds as soon as possible."

Meredith glared at him. "Why do you assume that since I'm a girl, I'm going to take a long time to get changed?"

He rolled his eyes skyward. "There are some women who like to look nice when they come to work here," he explained with as much patience as he could muster. "I don't know your habits, you might be one of those women."

"Why would I do that? Who the hell do I have to impress?"

"Oh, I don't know," he muttered under his breath, "maybe Viper?"

Unfortunately, she heard.

"You just won't let this go will you?" she screeched. "Why can't you accept the fact that I didn't kiss him? He kissed me!"

"Because you didn't do anything to stop it," he shot, finally dropping all pretenses of composure. "You just stood there, letting him kiss you! The last time I checked, that was not the proper way to comfort a patient in pain!"

"Why the hell do you even care?" she spat. "You're making it into a bigger deal than it really is!"

"Well fine!" he shouted. "If you want to be the hospital whore then be my guest!"

"I AM NOT A WHORE!" she screamed.

Unfortunately for the two of them, they hadn't realized that the elevator doors had opened the split second before Meredith shouted. The snickers from the nurse's station told Meredith that their conversation wasn't private anymore.

For the first time in many years, she blushed a deep crimson and Derek smirked at the intern's obvious embarrassment. "Meet me back at the nurse's station in ten minutes," he told her. She simply nodded in reply and rushed off to the intern's locker room with her head down.

The moment she walked in, Karev smirked at her. "So…what's this I hear about you being a whore? If you're serious about it, I could be interested in your…services."

Meredith took off one of her heavy wedge heels and hurled it at his head. Fortunately for him, she missed.

Ten minutes later she met Derek at the nurse's station, per his demands. "Good," he said briskly when he looked up and saw her walking towards him. "We'll be doing rounds in a minute. Milly, can I get the charts for rooms three oh six and three oh seven?"

The nurse behind the desk rolled over to grab the charts and handed them over to him. Silently, Meredith followed him to the rooms with the charts tucked under her arms. As it turned out, room three oh six was where Viper was staying in.

"Hello, love!" he cried when he saw Meredith walk in. She struggled to give him a stern look, but gave up when her face melted into a smile. She had been too preoccupied with her own facial expressions to notice that Derek's lips thinned.

"Well, Viper, you'll be happy to know that we managed to remove the aneurism and stopped the bleeding," Derek informed him rather coolly. Viper took no notice of his tone and instead spent his time winking cheekily at Meredith. "You'll make a full recovery and you'll be back on a bike soon enough."

"That's great! But I guess I probably should have listened to you earlier then, huh?" he asked Meredith with a good natured gleam in his eye.

She grinned in spite of herself, completely ignoring the fact that Derek was standing next to her. "Yes you should have," she reprimanded lightly. "You got me in trouble with my superiors, just to let you know."

"Well then let me make it up to you," he replied. "Why don't you let me take you to dinner?"

"I'm afraid that's impossible," Derek said coldly. "She's a surgical intern, so she very rarely has any days off and she's on call twenty-four hours. Not to mention, you're her patient and she needs to be getting on with rounds."

Viper made a face at him. "I don't think I was asking _you_. So, love, what do you say?"

"She has a name," said Derek irritably.

Meredith discreetly smashed her heel into his toe and turned to face Viper with a wide grin. "I really have to be getting on with rounds," she told him. "So I can't give you an answer right now. Maybe after you're discharged, we'll see." And with a final smile she grabbed Derek by the sleeve and dragged him out of the room.

"I can handle myself," she told him angrily once they were outside.

"Oh really?" he sneered. "Then how come you didn't say anything when he asked you out?"

"Because you wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise!" she cried indignantly. "Believe it or not, _Dr. Shepherd_, I was planning on saying no!"

This piece of information took him a little bit by surprise, but he quickly recovered. "Well then why did you let me do it for you?"

She sneered at him. "I never asked you to. I would have been perfectly fine by myself. How about the next time I get asked out by a patient, you let _me_ tell them no?"

He sneered right back. "Next time? What makes you think anyone's going to ask you out a next time? I hate to break it to you, Dr. Grey, but you're not all that attractive. Viper must not have very good taste."

Anger flashed in the intern's eyes as she glared at her superior. "You're so…so…" she struggled to find a word nasty enough to describe him.

"So what?" he challenged. "I'm so what, Dr. Grey?"

"Ugh!" she shouted as she stomped down the hall.

Derek took the time to smirk to himself before he followed his intern down the hall. Meanwhile, Beatrice stood at the nurse's station, chuckling to herself and making a tally mark on the piece of paper; so far, the score stood four to one in Derek's favor.

She wasn't the only person in the hospital watching their exchange in interest; unbeknownst to Dr. Shepherd, his interns were taking bets on how long it was going to take for them to realize that they actually liked each other.

"I bet they don't realize it for another four months," declared Cristina as she plopped down into her chair with her meager hospital meal that afternoon, getting ready to spend her lunch hour with the rest of her suck-up colleagues.

"Oh, come on," scoffed George as he took the seat across from her. "Meredith's not that stupid. I give her four weeks."

Izzie snorted into her lemonade. "George," she began patiently as she wiped her mouth, "I've known Meredith since kindergarten, and she's always been that stupid. I agree with Cristina, I give them four months."

"I'll give you four to one odds that they start dating after three," Karev announced with the ever present, self-satisfied smirk.

"Deal," Izzie and Cristina both said simultaneously. George simply rolled his eyes and continued on with his sandwich.

Meanwhile, across the courtyard Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Grey both ate their lunches in stony silence. When the rest of the hospital realized that the two of them were definitely not in the mood to talk, the turned back to their own lunches, barely paying them notice.

"You shouldn't have screamed on the elevator today," Derek informed her very matter-of-factly as he speared his salad. "It's got everybody watching us."

Meredith scowled at her superior in annoyance. "Well I wouldn't have shouted if you hadn't called me a whore."

"Well I wouldn't have called you a whore if you weren't acting like one."

"I wasn't!"

"Could have fooled me."

"Then you must not have known very many whores in your life," she spat, "which seriously surprises me, considering there's no other way you'd ever get laid."

Dr. Shepherd decided to take the mature route and stick his ranch dressing-drenched tongue out at his intern, partly because he didn't want to continue the line of conversation and partly because he couldn't think of anything equally as clever to shoot back.

"So it looks like I've found the fun table," Mark declared as he took a seat next to his best friend. He grinned at Meredith as a form of greeting. "Dr. Grey. How are you today?"

She forced a smile to her face. "Fine," she lied as she bit into her sandwich.

"Then how come it looks like you're about to start spitting fire?" asked Mark with an innocent look on his face that fooled no one.

The smile on her face melted into a scowl. "Because I have to spend the next month with your asshole of a best friend."

"Hey," Derek protested, "it's not like I asked for this! We're both in a position we don't like!"

"Well then how about we come to a decision?" Meredith shot. "How about we just not talk to each other unless we have to? Like I suggested _before_ we ended up here!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"_Fine_!"

"FINE!"

Mark watched the exchange with an expression on his face that made it seem like he was having a difficult time deciding on whether he should be disapproving or amused. In the end, he decided on the latter and when the exchange of emphatic "FINE"s was finished, he turned to grin at Meredith. "So, Dr. Grey, I was wondering if you'd like to have a drink with me at Joe's tonight. After your shift, of course," he added as clarification.

Derek opened his mouth to reply, but before he could utter a single word, Meredith beat him to the punch. "I'd love to, Mark," she told him with a smile on her face that chipped away at Derek's heart.

Mark smiled back at her and said, "Great. I'll meet you there then."

"That sounds great."

It certainly didn't sound so great to Derek. Unfortunately, it wasn't in his place to accept or reject dates on Meredith's behalf (as much as he hated to admit it), so he contented himself to grinding his teeth in anger and resentment.

"Derek, what's wrong?" Mark said with a concerned look that concealed his inner smirk. "You look upset."

"I'm not," he said shortly.

"No," Mark said in reply. "Your nostrils are flaring, and your nostrils only do that when you're upset."

"I'm not upset!" he shouted as he leapt up from his chair. "Dr. Grey, lunch is over. We have to get back to work."

"But I'm not--!"

"Now!" he shouted authoritatively.

A rather deadly sounding growl erupted from Meredith's throat, but she got up and followed her superior's example. If it weren't for the fact that she could get in _a lot_ of trouble, she would have taken the remains of her soggy salad and chucked at Derek Shepherd's fat, stupid head.

The sad irony of the whole situation was that the only thing that kept Meredith sane was the fact that she was going out for drinks with Mark later that night, and it was that same fact that increased Derek's vindictiveness toward his intern ten-fold. During the many surgeries that he scrubbed in that day, he had Meredith standing at the very back, behind all the scrub nurses and other residents so she couldn't see a single thing.

The entire time through the by-the-book appendectomy, Meredith clenched her jaw and forced herself to think of the to good time she was going to have later tonight with Mark at Joe's. Then she could drink as much tequila as her tiny body could absorb and forget all about her stupid work issues and all of the dumb crap that she had to deal with at the hospital. And that coveted bar date was only four hours away.

As Derek was cutting out the offending organ of some nameless, faceless patient, he thought back to the way his best friend had just brazenly asked his intern to a bar date at lunch. He couldn't figure out why it bothered him so much; but a tiny part of the rational side of his mind realized that he was jealous. It should have been him that asked Meredith to drinks at Joe's, and he was upset with Mark because he beat him to the chase.

And in the midst of all the confusion of feeling, Mark stood in the gallery, silently patting himself on the back for his brilliant plan. If he feigned interest in the scrappy intern, Derek would be stirred out of his dormant state and he would realize how much he really liked her. And after Derek finally opened his eyes, Mark would very gracefully step out of the way and help his friend secure said intern.

**A/N - Soo...the past couple of weeks have been seriously insane. I've been uprooting basically and now that I'm a little bit more settled, I can update a lot more frequently.**

**Lots and lots of crazy stuff going on, huh? Sheesh, I love it. I love writing all this insanity. It's fantastic!**

**Don't forget to check the blog for extra stuff.**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N - Ack, long wait I know! Please don't hate me!**

**Chapter 9**

"What the hell was that at lunch?" Derek demanded his best friend later that day when their shifts were over.

Mark struggled to hide his smirk. "Why Derek! I have no idea what you're talking about!"

He growled. "You _know_ that we aren't supposed to date the interns. It's against the rules."

"You're not going to tell on me, are you?" Mark fake pouted. "I'm your best friend!"

He rolled his eyes. "You always have to push your boundaries. Why can't you just follow the rules for once?"

"Has it ever occurred to you that you just might be--well--jealous?"

Derek scoffed as if that was the most **r**idiculous idea he had ever heard in his life. "_Jealous_?" he asked incredulously. "I don't get jealous. Especially not over _Meredith Grey_!"

At that moment, said intern walked out of the intern locker room clad in a black dress that fitted her tightly around the bust and waist, but flared out once it reached her legs. A pair of insanely tall black high heels graced her feet and her hair, though usually swept up in a messy ponytail was combed until the blonde shone brightly and the wavy curls cascaded over her shoulders. She wore a very slight hint of makeup and her lips were glossed and refracting the light that hit it. Needless to say, she looked amazing.

Derek was stunned absolutely speechless at her transformation.

Mark smiled at her and she smiled back. "Shall we?" he asked as he offered his arm to her.

"We shall," she replied as she accepted his proffered arm. With that, the two of them walked out the hospital doors, arm in arm, laughing at some joke Mark had cracked.

Izzie, Cristina, and George walked out of the locker room a few moments later, only to run into a slack-jawed Derek standing right outside the door. George was puzzled, but Cristina and Izzie smirked at each other.

"Um, Dr. Shepherd?" Izzie asked. "Are you alright?"

He seemed to snap out of his head space. He turned back to intern and asked stupidly, "Huh?"

"Are you alright?" she repeated. "You look kinda out of it."

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, shaking his head to clear the mist that shrouded his brain. "I--I just…"

"Hey, George, what bar did Meredith say she was going to with McSteamy?" Cristina asked, making sure Derek could hear her.

Derek whipped his head so fast in their direction that he got a crick. "McSteamy?" he asked incredulously as he rubbed the side of his neck. "You guys call him McSteamy?"

George was utterly confused, but Cristina and Izzie both nodded. "Oh yeah. Meredith calls him that all the time," Izzie informed him.

"She was the on**e** who came up with it," Cristina added.

His eyes narrowed. "She did?"

"Um, I think they're going to Emerald City," George told Cristina, completely unaware of what the two of his friends were doing. "She said something about Joe giving her free shots after midnight."

Derek had subconsciously curled his hands into fists at that point. "After midnight?" he asked in a voice quivering in anger. "She's got pre-rounds tomorrow at five."

Cristina shrugged. "A girl's gotta unwind somehow."

Izzie giggled conspiratorially. "Although she might just forego getting drunk altogether and sleep with the guy. I mean, she hasn't gotten laid in six months."

Cristina smirked inwardly at the absolutely livid expression on Derek's face. "He looks like he'd be good, wouldn't he?"

"Oh, what I wouldn't give to be in her shoes," sighed Izzie.

"Okay, this conversation is getting a bit too gay for me," George said as he made his way towards the doors. "Hey, Izzie, I thought we were going to watch some of Ellis Grey's surgical tapes."

"Oh, right. Do you mind if I stay in your apartment? I kinda want to lea**v**e Meredith alone in case she brings Mark home. She gets a little loud when she's having fun." She winked at Cristina who laughed openly. Derek, on the other hand, was so angry, it looked as if his eyesballs were about to pop out of their sockets.

"Bye, Dr. Shepherd," Izzie waved.

"Yeah, bye," George called as he hurried to catch up with her.

"Have a good night," Cristina called as she pulled her bike jacket on.

But he didn't hear any of their well wishes. There was only one thought going through his mind at that moment: crash the date.

In seconds he was in his car and ripping out of the parking lot to get to Emerald City. _They have to still be there,_ he thought desperately through the jealous and angry haze that surrounded his brain. _It's too early, they can't have left yet_.

Meanwhile, Meredith was having a pleasant conversation in a secluded booth with Dr. McSteamy, the player of all players, the gamer of all gamers, the number one most eligible bachelor and biggest playboy surgeon in America.

She was _so_ lucky.

"So these crazy evangelicals are standing in the middle of the speaker's circle, and they're all screaming and shouting about how we're all going to hell, right? Like, I've got Tommy Hilfiger written on my shirt, so I'm automatically going to hell."

"Seriously?" laughed Meredith.

He laughed along with her. "Yeah. He said that Ghandi was go**i**ng to hell because he wasn't Christian, that Mother Theresa was going to hell because she was Catholic, and Martin Luther King Jr. was going to hell because he was an adulterer."

"Oh, not because he's black?"

"Ha, no, not because he's black."

"So these were nondiscriminatory hell preachers."

He laughed. "Yeah. So they were all holding this sign with this list of people who are all going to hell and Derek and I walk straight through them shouting, 'GET DRUNK! HAVE SEX! PARTY 'TIL YOU DIE!'"

Meredith laughed. "Oh wow! All of that happened at NYU? Isn't New York supposed to be liberal or something?"

Mark took a small sip of his beer. He didn't want to risk getting drunk and losing his composure when he didn't have any intentions of sleeping with Meredith. This was strictly for Derek. "Yeah, but these guys were from Mississippi or something like that. They're touring evangelicals."

She giggled. "Nothing like that happened at Dartmouth. You got the occasional heated abortion debate, but that was it."

"Oh, right! You went to Dartmouth. I remember Derek saying something about that." _Smoothly done,_ he thought as he patted himself on the back.

She looked surprised. "How did Derek know I went to Dartmouth?"

"He's your resident, isn't he?" he asked. "Besides, it was something about you making out with a patient…? I think? Oh well. He was upset that you were making out with patients and he was talking about how the 'prestigious medical program of Dartmouth was teaching its students to kiss the pain away'."

Meredith scowled. "I did not make out with him!"

He smirked. "Well if you don't make out with patients, do you make out with residents?"

At that moment, Derek walked up to the two of them. "Hey, Mark," he greeted through clenched teeth. "Mind if I join you?"

Inwardly, Mark was rejoicing. He honestly couldn't have planned this night any better himself. However, he had a part to play. He struggled to pull his smirk down under a look of disapproving. "Uh, well--"

"Great, thanks," he cut across him. He plopped into the seat next to Mark in the booth and turned a full on smile to Meredith. "Hello, Meredith. How are you?"

The intern was slightly taken aback at his demeanor and a little annoyed that he was crashing her date. "Um, I'm fine. Thank you for asking."

"That's great. So what were you guys talking about?"

"We were talking about college--" Mark began, but he was cut off once again.

"Oh, college was great!" He turned in the booth to wave a sign at Joe standing at the bar. Joe nodded and immediately got to work on his scotch. Then Derek turned back to Meredith and Mark and said, "Yeah, NYU was awesome. Remember that time when you were so drunk, you were having sex with your date, but you couldn't find her--"

"No," said Mark firmly as he scowled at his friend. "I don't remember that."

"Really?" Derek frowned, then shrugged. "You were probably too drunk to remember then. She came to my room the next day complaining about how your breath smelled and she didn't even get to--"

"Here you go, Doc," Joe appeared at the booth with Derek's drink. "Single malt scotch."

"You're a good man, Joe!" he shouted as he took a swing. When Joe returned to the bar, Derek turned back to his best friend, giving a booming laugh. "Oh, and did you tell her about the time when I stole your towel while you were taking a shower?"

Meredith's eyes lit up in spite of herself. "Really?" she asked with interest.

Dr. Shepherd turned his full attention to her, this time a genuine smile on his fac**e**. The smirk on Mark's face went unnoticed.

"Yeah. We were in a co-ed dorm and Mark had finished all my peanut butter and didn't bother getting anymore, so I took his towel and bathrobe while he was in the shower. He had to walk back to the room dripping wet and completely naked."

Meredith laughed. "Oh my gosh! What happened then?"

"Well in Johnston, each floor has three wings. Two of them are reserved for girls and one of them is reserved for the guys, and you have to walk through one of the girls' hall to get to the guys' hall from the bathroom and one of the girls on our floor had her parents visiting and they were standing right outside her room. They were absolutely horrified."

Mark smiled in spite of the embarrassing story. "I did get a lot of visitors that night, though," he said with a reminiscent look on his face. "And I got laid more times that month than I ever had in my life."

Derek snorted. "Yeah, I know. That's when we had to resort to the red scarf system."

Meredith laughed. "Izzie and were more obvious. We took the door sign that we got when we moved in and we glued a condom wrapper on it, so we just used that whenever we brought a guy home. I used it more than Izzie did."

Mark turned on all the charm and he sent a sexy smile her way. "Really? So you were that girl in college?"

Meredith laughed as she took a long draft of beer. "Yeah. I came home from a different frat house every night, most of the times either tipsy or full out drunk during my freshman year. By the time senior year rolled around, I just started having a lot of sex."

"What about now?" Mark asked, completely and purposely ignoring his best friend sitting next to him. He could almost hear Derek's teeth grinding.

Meredith smirked. "A few more of these," she raised her almost-empty beer glass, "and you just might get lucky."

"Joe! Another round!" Mark shouted.

In less than a second, Derek went from warm and joking to cold and jealous. "I don't think you should," he told Meredith. "You have rounds tomorrow and--"

"Derek, I'm not on a date with you," Meredith told him irritably. "As a matter of fact, why are you here? You know that we're on a date. Why are you here?"

He opened his mouth and was about to reply when he realized that he didn't have an answer. He tried to gather ideas together, but Meredith's lip gloss was doing strange things to his brain.

"Well, while you're trying to come up with an answer, I'm going to the bathroom." She turned to smile at her date and gestured to her glass. "You'll get right on that beer, won't you?"

Mark smiled back. "Of course."

The moment Meredith was out of earshot, Derek turned to his best friend. "You can't sleep with her, Mark."

"And why not? The last time I checked, this was a free country."

"You just can't!"

"Why? Give me one good reason why I should stay a**w**ay from her."

Derek through his hands up in the air in frustration. Why wasn't Mark getting it? He was supposed to be his best friend! "Because!"

Mark's eyebrows shot up his forehead. "Because what?"

"Because I like her!" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop him, but the moment they were said, he knew that he couldn't doubt their truth. He did like her, he couldn't deny it any longer. Meredith Grey had grown from that scrappy, annoying little girl that he had once known into a beautiful, intelligent young woman that wasn't afraid to kick him in the ass when he needed it. "I like her and it's killing me just watching the two of you together! Please, Mark! I'm begging you, don't do this to me!"

Mark smirked at his best friend. "About damn time you idiot."

Derek opened his mouth to retort, but immediately stopped, confused at his best friend's words. After Mark's reply sunk in, Derek finally asked, "What?"

"I know you like her. It's so obvious."

Derek shook his head, but he wasn't all that angry. He should have known that his best friend would do something like this to get him to open his eyes. "You damn bastard."

**A/N - So you know those randomly and sporadically bolded and underlined letters throughout the chapter? If you put them all together, it spells out a message!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N - Mixed feelngs about last night's premiere. I loved it, but at the same time I'm whole apprehensive about the break-up thing...le sigh...**

**But the deer was effing hilarious.**

**Anyways, new chapter! Be excited!**

**Chapter 10**

Mark looked around Derek to see if Meredith had walked out of the bathroom yet. When he verified that the coast was clear, he turned to his best friend. "All right, here's the plan. I'm going to leave right now and when Meredith comes out of the bathroom, you're going to tell her that I got paged and I asked you to make sure she got home safely, okay?"

Derek was confused. "What is this supposed to do?"

Mark rolled his eyes. "It's supposed to give the two of you an opening. Come on, Derek, it's kind of obvious the girl hates your guts. You're going to have to work your ass off to get this girl on your side."

Dr. Shepherd grimaced back at his friend. "Okay. If we're going to do this, we better do it now. She might come out of the bathroom any moment."

He nodded. "Right." He got up and downed the rest of his beer in one gulp. Then he slammed the glass back onto the table and said, "Good luck. Try not to screw this up."

Derek was too preoccupied to care about his comment; instead of coming up with something clever to shoot back at his friend, he was trying to think of what to tell Meredith when she came back out of the bathroom.

Just as Mark was pulling out of the parking lot, Meredith emerged from the bathroom, hair freshly arranged and lips newly glossed. She frowned when she realized that Derek was the only one left in the booth. "What happened to Mark?"

"Hospital paged him," Derek said, slightly dazed by the shine of her lips. "He asked me to make sure you got home safely."

Meredith's shoulders visibly slumped. "Oh."

After an intense inner battle that involved much fist-clenching and lip-biting, Derek finally got the balls to ask the question he'd been dying to know the answer to since Mark asked her on a date. "Do you like him?" he blurted hurriedly.

Instead of looking severe and disgusted as he expected her to, Meredith actually looked a bit surprised. "Why are you so interested, Dr. Shepherd?" she asked a little skeptically, a little teasingly. Derek felt that huge, imaginary burden lift from his shoulders when he realized that she wasn't upset with him for asking such a personal question.

"Just curious," he shrugged. "Ever since we were in middle school he's had the female population wrapped around his finger. His reputation precedes him in five different states, yet women all over the country would eagerly line up just to sleep with him. Why?"

Meredith felt her lips in spite of herself. "He's gorgeous," she replied simply. "Girls would line up all over the country to go out with him because he's supposed to be the perfect man. He's well on his way to becoming a successful surgeon and he's one of the sexiest men in all of America. It's a status thing."

Derek sighed and sipped at his whiskey. "He's a commitment phobe, you know."

She nodded. "I figured."

He finished the rest of his drink in one mouthful and sighed as he set his glass down. "Would you like to stay a bit, or would you rather go home now?"

Meredith looked at him in surprise. "What?"

"He asked me to take care of you," he said with what he hoped was a nonchalant shrug. "Would you like a ride?"

She shook her head as she foisted her purse higher up on her shoulder. "No thank you. I can make it home fine."

Derek nodded and followed her out of the bar and to her car. Just as she was about to slide in, she abruptly turned to face her superior. "Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?"

He took no notice of how close they already were and moved in even closer. "Do you not want me to be nice to you?" he smirked. "Would you rather I be mean to you and make you look like a whore in front of the nurses?"

She scowled. "No."

Derek's smirk softened into a smile. "I'm just trying to make an effort here. You don't have to be so suspicious, Dr. Grey."

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Says the boy that filled my desk in third grade with worms."

"Only after you filled my lunch box with ketchup."

In spite of herself, Meredith giggled. "I thought that was pretty clever."

He nodded. "It would have been the perfect prank if you hadn't been cackling three tables away with Izzie at lunch."

For the first time in their lives, they looked back at their childhood with a certain fondness of their immaturity and their pranks, instead of being bitter and hostile. It was an easier time when nothing else mattered but getting revenge on the next door neighbor.

"Well we should probably get home," Meredith said when she finally realized that she was silently reminiscing with her long-time arch nemesis. How could her life possibly get any stranger?

"Yeah," Derek conceded. "Good night, Meredith."

"Good night, Derek."

Then they made the mistake of looking each other in the eyes. In that fateful moment when blue met gray-green, it seemed as if the ground had fallen out beneath them. All of a sudden their lungs constricted and their worlds collided in a way that they never would have thought possible. Unconsciously, Meredith leaned forward ever so slightly and Derek began to meet her.

Suddenly Joe flung open the door to his bar. "Hey, Doc! You forgot your wallet!"

The two surgeons were forced out of their trance and jumped, completely startled at the sudden interruption. Derek inwardly cursed Joe's horrible timing, but Meredith was positively reeling in confusion and embarrassment.

"Thanks, Joe," Derek told him as he went to retrieve his wallet. "Thanks a lot," he added under his breath. Then he turned back to Meredith who looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"So, I'll…um, well I guess I'll see you tomorrow then," she said hurriedly.

"Yeah," Derek nodded, slightly crestfallen. "Tomorrow."

"Bye," she called and before Derek could do anything else, she got into her car, slammed the door and turned the ignition. In hardly no time at all, she was out of the parking lot and out of sight.

Meredith knew in the back of her mind that it probably wasn't the best idea to be driving at that moment. She was tired, slightly intoxicated and incredibly confused. She had been _two inches away_ from kissing Derek Shepherd, her worst enemy since preschool. The same Derek Shepherd that was fighting to make her surgical life and career a living nightmare.

What in the world was wrong with her?

The moment she got home, she walked into the living room to find George and Izzie sitting on the couch, watching some of her mother's surgical tapes. "Mer!" Izzie lit up in surprise when she realized her best friend had just come home.

"How'd your date go?" George asked around a mouthful of popcorn.

"I almost kissed Derek," Meredith announced, still in a daze.

George stopped chewing and Izzie's mouth dropped in astonishment. "McDreamy?" she asked as she struggled to compose her face into an expression of polite puzzlement. "The guy that told the quarterback of the football team that you still wet your bed in high school?"

"Yes," Meredith said as she plopped down on the couch next to George.

George sat up straighter. He was still trying to get used to the whole being-friends-with-girls thing. "Care to explain how that happened?"

"He crashed our date," Meredith said simply.

"…and that led to kissing?" Izzie asked, slightly confused. She had known Meredith for the better part of her entire life and kissing her most hated enemy just because he crashed her date was so completely against her fundamental nature.

"Kind of. He crashed our date, then Mark got called to the hospital when I was in the bathroom, then Derek was making sure I got home and he walked me to my car and then…"

Izzie's eyes widened. "And that's when you almost kissed him?"

"Yes," Meredith said, almost despairingly. She finally snapped out of her trance. "Oh my God, what's wrong with me? I almost kissed my boss!"

"You went out on a date with one of your bosses," George pointed out. Meredith and Izzie both shot him looks of contempt and he promptly shut his mouth.

"Wait, so what exactly happened?" Izzie asked.

Meredith threw her hand sup hopelessly. "We looked at each other and then…then something sort of…happened, I guess. Something just happened and the next thing I know, I'm leaning forward and he's leaning forward and we're practically two inches apart and…"

"…and what?" Izzie asked excitedly.

"Joe interrupted us," she admitted. "Derek left his wallet in the bar and Joe came out to give it back to him."

"Oh," Izzie said disappointedly.

"Yeah…" Meredith trailed off.

"I don't understand," George said bluntly. "Why did you almost kiss him?"

"I don't know!" Meredith sighed in frustration. "I just _looked_ at him and then all of a sudden I feel all these weird feelings and all these weird thoughts and I just find myself leaning in. I don't know what happened!"

The three of them sat quietly for a while, contemplating Meredith's growingly complicated love life.

"So what does this mean?" Izzie asked to break the deafening silence.

"I don't know," she replied. "I…I just don't know."

"I think _I_ do," Izzie said confidently.

Meredith and George turned to her with looks of expectation.

"This means you _like_ him!" she shouted, excitement written in every line of her face. "You totally have the hots for McDreamy!"

"What?" Meredith asked indignantly. "I do not!"

"Yes you do! It's written all over your face! You like McDreamy, you like McDreamy!"

"I do not!" Desperation hung from every word, as if she were frantic to prove her wrong. "I can't like him, he's my superior! He was a jerk in high school!"

Izzie snorted. "So were you."

"No," she shook her head emphatically. "No, I don't--I don't like him. I _can't_ like him."

"Uh-huh," Izzie tutted, skeptical. "Just wait, Meredith Grey. You just wait. You found your lobster."

"I did _not_ find my lobster!"

"Lobster?" George asked in confusion.

"Lobsters mate for life," Izzie explained to him. "When we found out, we started calling the concept of soul mates lobsters because it sounded less cheesy."

"No," Meredith said firmly. "Derek is not my lobster. It was probably just the tequila. I leaned in because I was used to it. I did not want to kiss him and I do not like him. It was just a reaction to the setting and the tequila. And the fact that I was about to leave. That's it. I'm not going to make this into a bigger deal than it really is."

Izzie, however, was not paying attention to her best friend's rationalizations. "You found your lobster, you found your lobster!" she sang.

"I DID NOT FIND MY LOBSTER!"

* * *

"_Derek," Meredith whispered against his lips. He felt her fingernails claw through his hair, an action filled with need and desire. "Derek…"_

_Derek was moving his lips roughly against hers, hungrily trying to taste every last corner of her mouth. His arms were wrapped possessively around her waist, pressing her tiny frame against his stronger, more masculine one. "Meredith," he gasped in that brief moment when he pulled his lips away from hers to bury them in the cradle of her neck and shoulder. "Meredith…"_

_He felt her hands move down his face and down his chest to the hem of his shirt, eagerly pulling it up over the muscles of his torso. Derek felt a strong wave of desire course through him as the warmth of her hands brushed against his abdomen. He lifted his arms and allowed the shirt to be pulled off of him in an almost hurried manner. Then he buried his face back in her neck, kissing and nipping at every bare inch of flesh he found._

_Meredith cupped his face with her hands and brought them back to her own so she could taste his lips. Derek fleetingly noted feeling something small and cold against the right side of his face, but the thought soon flew out of his mind when her hands traveled down his face and neck to rest against his chest._

"_Meredith," he gasped between kisses. He rained them down on every inch of her face; over her eyelids, over her cheeks and finally coming to rest on her lips. These kisses were slower, less rushed and urgent. Now they touched each other like they had the rest of their lives to be together._

"_Derek," she whispered. She pulled away briefly and smiled into his eyes. He felt his breath catch in his throat like it had so many times when he gazed into the depths of her gray-green eyes. There was now describing the happiness he felt in that moment._

"_Derek, I love you," she whispered. Then she lifted her head to meet his lips with hers._

_A joy unknown to him before welled up in his chest as he wrapped her tightly in his muscled arms and held her against him. He never thought that those four words from Meredith Grey could have given him so much happiness. He took his happiness out on her mouth._

"_I love you too, Meredith," he whispered when they pulled away. He nuzzled her ear, tracing patterns on the skin underneath her shirt. "I love you too."_

**A/N - I wanted to update before I left for the weekend. I'll be out of town and unable to check my email, so make sure you guys leave me a nice review!**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N - Aha...okay, so I know it's been forever since the last time I updated, but I'm sure you guys can understand the craziness of school and friend drama, right? I just had to be there for some friends and it definitely took a lot out of me. But now that it's almost Thanksgiving, I think it's about time I wrote a new chapter. I hope you like it, and I added loads of MerDer action just for you guys!**

**Chapter 11**

"You look like hell," Izzie told her best friend as she peeked at her over the rim of her coffee cup. "Did you sneak someone in after I went to bed last night?"

"No," rasped Meredith as she reached out graspingly for a mug. "I just couldn't get to sleep."

Which was completely true. She couldn't fall asleep because thoughts of Derek were running through her mind all night. She couldn't leave the fact that the two of them almost kissed alone. What annoyed her the most though, was the little voice in the back of her head that told her that she _wanted_ to kiss him. The moment Joe interrupted the two of them, every nerve in her body screamed in disappointment.

The question was: why? For crying out loud, he was Derek freaking Shepherd! For the longest time, those two words were synonymous with hell in her book and all of a sudden she wanted to _kiss_ him?

"I think I'm losing my mind," she declared before taking a long drag of coffee.

Twenty minutes later, the two of them were pulling into the Seattle Grace parking lot. Meredith felt the anticipatory tingles crawl over her skin at the fact that soon she would be in Derek's presence, and that fact irritated her to no end.

"Meredith, are you seriously okay?" Izzie asked again. "You look like you did right before Lisa Kaletski's wedding."

The dark blonde turned to her best friend, a half-crazed look in her eye. "Okay, Izzie. Here's the thing: I almost kissed Derek last night, and I think that I _wanted_ to. I think I _wanted_ to kiss him. And then I dreamt that I was _engaged_ to him and we did things that I'm so not comfortable to admit even to myself, things that I'm pretty sure I've never done in my life. And now I'm about to walk in there and spend the next forty-eight hours with a man that I almost-kissed and was dream-engaged to. A man, I might add, that I have hated since I was old enough to walk. A man who also happens to be my _boss_. What in the world am I going to do?"

Izzie stared at her best friend. "Okay, hold on. I did _not_ catch all of that, so we're going to have to go through that all again very slowly. You say that you almost kissed Derek and you actually _wanted_ him to kiss you, right?"

Meredith nodded.

"And you dreamt that the two of you were engaged and also engaged in…not…so…savory actions together last night as well."

She nodded again.

"And now you don't want to spend the next forty-eight hours with the man that you almost-kissed and was dream-engaged with because you've 'hated'," (she encased the word with hand quotes), "since you were old enough to talk. A man that is also your boss."

Meredith nodded very frantically.

Izzie let out a whoosh of breath. "Wow, Mer. Of all the things you've done in your life, I'm pretty sure this tops all."

She smacked her best friend on the shoulder. "Not helping!"

"Well I--"

The two of them yelped as they were both shocked and interrupted by a tap on the window. Derek Shepherd stood outside the car as his muffled voice permeated the thick glass. "Come on. We have rounds in twenty minutes."

The distressed intern whipped her head around to stare pleadingly at her best friend. "What do I do?" she mouthed.

"I don't know!" Izzie mouthed back.

Meredith shot her friend a withering glare before pulling the handle and climbing out of the car. She could feel her heart pounding in her throat and the blood rushing to her face when she looked into the deep blue eyes of her resident. "Good morning, Dr. Shepherd," she managed to greet, albeit a shakily.

"Good morning," he replied briskly before offering her the second cup of coffee he was holding. "Shall we?" and before waiting for a reply, he headed towards the hospital.

Thrown off by his brusque manner, Meredith followed suit and took a sip of the coffee. Two creamers, and no sugar…just like she liked it.

They reached the locker room and Derek fixed her with a stern look. "I need you changed and finished in five minutes. Understood?" And before she could reply again, he walked off to change himself.

She felt a sense of indignation. What in the world was his problem? She wasn't late, she hadn't said anything wrong, and she hadn't killed anyone yet. Why was he acting so distant, especially since last night? He went from hot to cold in twelve hours and she couldn't keep up with his mood swings at all.

Five minutes later, she was changed and waiting outside the locker room with her notepad and a pen. She didn't have to wait long for Derek to come out looking sexily disheveled in a way that reminded her of her hot dream all over again. "Let's go Dr. Grey. And try to keep up."

Slightly insulted, she followed him to the elevator. "Dr. Hamilton wants me on his tumor removal this morning and because of the Chief's stupid order, I have to take you with me. Try not to make me look stupid, okay?"

_That's it_, she thought angrily to herself. She reached forward and pulled the emergency stop before whipping her head around to her resident. "Okay, what the hell is your problem?"

He sighed impatiently. "Dr. Grey, we do not have time for--"

"No, don't give me that. Yesterday you were trying to bury the hatchet and now you're taking a billion steps back. What the hell is your problem?"

"You want to know what my problem is?" Derek asked, finally fed up with the whole situation. "My problem is you. My problem is the fact that you're everywhere. You're with me, even when you're not and it drives me crazy. I can't get away from you and all I can think about is the fact that last night, we were engaged and now you're looking at me like I'm the scum of the universe."

That was when they both lost it. The tension in that tiny elevator was too much for them to handle and before they knew it, Meredith was pushed up against the control panel by Derek's strong hands and within nanoseconds, their lips were pressed frantically together in a furious lock that refused to let go. Derek's hands traveled to Meredith's hair and frantically grasped at her silky blonde locks. This kiss…this kiss was so much more than anything he could imagine. It blew every other kiss, every other memory out of the water. He relished the feel of her tiny hands against the thin cloth of his scrubs, the way her lips moved and worked with his. He loved the way her golden locks slipped in between his fingers and the way the two of them seemed to steal each other's breaths, almost as if they had been doing this forever.

And it was quite clear that the two of them were thinking the same thing: the dream was nothing compared to this.

Unfortunately, neither of them realized that Meredith's back had been pushed the emergency stop and the elevator had started up again. They hadn't noticed until the elevator dinged and the doors opened. They jumped apart in a startled frenzy and tried to straighten their appearance.

Mark stepped in through the doorway, but stopped when he saw his best friend and his intern look away guiltily. "Okay," the surgeon said slowly when he registered the tangible tension between the two of them. "Why do I get the feeling that I just interrupted something that shouldn't have happened?"

Meredith and Derek fleetingly glanced at each other before replying hastily, "Nothing happened."

He glanced between them skeptically. "Uh-huh. Well, you won't mind then if I just," he stepped inside the elevator and pushed his floor number, "ride this elevator for a while, do you?"

"Um, no," Derek said quickly. "In fact, Dr. Grey was just going to get, um, those Mr. Carlson's EEG scans. Weren't you, Dr. Grey?"

"Uh, yeah," Meredith said hurriedly. She pushed the closing elevator doors open and rushed out. "Right away sir. Goodbye, uh…doc--doctor Sloane."

"Bye," Mark said skeptically. When the doors closed, he rounded on his best friend like a woman would and stared at him avidly. "What happened when I left last night? And what the hell was that just now?"

Derek didn't hear a word he just said. Without even thinking, he reached up and touched his still tingling lips. His fingers were shaking and his knees were weak; he couldn't even breathe.

"Hey, Derek," Mark called. "Woo hoo, earth to Derek. Derek…" He waved his hands in front of his best friend but nothing seemed to get through to the dazed surgeon.

Still dazed, it was then that Derek realized that he and Meredith had passed the point of no return. They couldn't blame their volatile relationship on dislike or hatred any longer. And that scared him like nothing else.

Meanwhile, Meredith was pressed against the wall in a supply closet, breathing deeply in and out. She kissed Derek Shepherd.

She _kissed_ Derek Shepherd.

She traced her lips with her tongue, trying desperately to remember the way he tasted. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, trying to remember the way he felt against her, the way he held her and the way he ran his rough fingers through her hair.

It was, without a doubt, the most sensational and most amazing kiss she had ever experienced before in her life.

Suddenly, the door opened and the moment the light hit her in the face, she jumped almost a mile high.

"Whoa," said the voice of Cristina Yang when she realized Meredith was there. "What in the world are you doing in the supply closet?"

"I'm hiding from McDreamy," she replied.

"Um, aren't you supposed two supposed to be glued together or something?"

"Yeah," she replied wearily while sliding to the floor and hugging her knees close against her. "We are."

"Then…" Cristina trailed off, waiting for a response.

"I just kissed him."

Cristina's jaw dropped the moment she heard those four words pour out of Meredith's mouth. "Y…you just kissed _McDreamy_? But--I--I thought you hated him!"

She heaved a sigh. "I do. I did. I don't know."

"How did you get away?"

"Mark got on the elevator and we freaked out."

"Wait, you kissed McDreamy on an _elevator_?" asked Cristina, seriously impressed. "Oh wow, Meredith. And here I am thinking you're boring."

Meredith leapt up and grabbed Cristina by the shoulders. "You have to do a favor for me."

"Oh, uh no. I don't do favors."

"Shepherd put you on sutures in the pit, didn't he?"

Cristina paused. "Yeah…" she said slowly. "What are you getting at?"

"I switch places with me. Please, please, please switch places with me. Shepherd's on an aneurism removal and he sent me to get Mr. Carlson's EEG. You haven't seen an aneurism removal yet, have you?"

"Okay, why in the world are you giving up this surgery for sutures? What's the catch?"

"There is no catch! I just kissed my boss and arch nemesis since grade school! I can't go back there! Please, just do this for me, I'm begging you!"

"And what if he asks for you? What are you going to do then? What if the Chief sees you're not there?"

"I need this, Cristina. I need to be away from him, I need some time by myself. Please?"

She sighed. "Fine. But if I better not get in trouble because of this, do you understand?"

Meredith nodded emphatically, grabbed some suture wire and ran out of the supply closet, ready to throw herself into a comparably mindless surgical task. She would suture better than she'd ever suture before because she needed to forget. She needed to forget that she had just moments ago experienced one of the most brain-bending, skin-tingling kisses in her life with a man she never would have kissed, no matter how smashed she was.

Two minutes later, Cristina finally found Dr. Shepherd and eagerly handed him the scans he asked for. "Hello, Dr. Shepherd. Dr. Grey asked me to be her replacement today."

He frowned. "Dr. Yang, I thought I told you to cover the pit today."

"Um, yes, but Dr. Grey said that she wasn't feeling well and she probably shouldn't be in the OR today, so she asked to switch with me."

The word _bullshit_ flashed across Derek's brain. "If she's not feeling well, she probably shouldn't be treating patients at all."

"I, uh, I think she said something about dizziness."

"I am too, but you don't see me shirking an aneurism removal." The minute the words left his mouth, he could have smacked himself in the head. He pretty much just admitted to Meredith's colleague and friend that Meredith's kiss had affected more than he would have liked to admit, and now Cristina was going to tell her the moment she got the chance.

"Dr. Shepherd, I will be the best intern you have ever worked with," Cristina insisted quite emphatically. "I just want to get the chance to work with you and Dr. Hamilton. Please, just give me this chance and I will be the quietest, most efficient, most effective intern. Believe me."

Derek sighed and took the scans. "Fine."

The two of them stepped out into the hall and made their way to the patient's room. "Just out of curiosity, Dr. Yang," Derek began, as casually as he could, "what exactly did Dr. Grey tell you?"

"Uh…" Cristina was hesitant. She didn't want to rat out a friend, but at the same time, she didn't want to say no to a superior. "She, um, she said something about an elevator and sutures. To be honest, she was kind of incoherent."

Inwardly, Derek smirked. It was good to know that she wasn't the only one affected by all of this insanity.

**A/N - So...I hope that was hot enough for you guys. BE SURE TO CHECK THE BLOG BECAUSE THERE ARE THINGS ON THERE THAT I WOULD LIKE ALL MY READERS TO SEE.**

**Thank you!**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N - Gah, I know! I have no excuse at all for the delay in updates. But be happy because this is the last chapter!**

**Chapter 12**

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Chu," Meredith murmured under her breath as she finished stitching a gash in the lady's arm. "I need you to come back in five days so I can remove the stitches."

Dr. Webber was walking through the pit and spotted the young intern suturing wounds closed. He frowned at the sight and immediately walked over to where Meredith sat. "Dr. Grey, aren't you supposed to be in surgery with Dr. Shepherd?"

Meredith didn't want to meet her stepfather's disapproving gaze, so she kept her eyes on the wound though she had cleaned it several times. "Um, yes."

"Then why aren't you?"

"Because I'm needed here, sir."

She couldn't prolong the woman's care any longer. After putting a bandage over the closed wound, Meredith led her to the nurse's station to fill out the rest of the paperwork and reluctantly turned to her stepfather. "Look, I know--"

"Meredith, I believe I specifically told you to stay at his side," he said sternly.

"You did," she admitted. "And we were! But…"

"But what? What could be important enough to ignore my orders?"

"I can't work with him anymore," she begged. "I just can't."

The older man sighed. "Come to my office. We need to talk."

She followed him to his office and the moment she crossed the threshold it was no longer a talk between teacher and student. It was a personal discussion between stepfather and stepdaughter.

"Alright," he sighed as he took a seat in his leather chair. "What's going on?"

"I can't do this!" she cried. "I can't work with him! I can't work with him. Please, I'm begging you, put me with someone, anyone else!"

"Meredith, I know better than that. Something happened that you're not telling me."

She gnashed her teeth and her stepfather's intuition. This was so not something you discussed with your _stepfather_. "I…"

He waited for her to spit it out. "You what? Come on, Meredith. I'm not getting any younger."

"I…I kissed him."

There was definitely a surprised reaction in the exchange. However, the surprised reaction was not Dr. Webber's doing.

"So?" he asked calmly.

Meredith's jaw dropped at her stepfather's words. "Didn't you hear me? I kissed him."

"I am not deaf, Meredith. I heard you the first time and now I'm asking you: so what?"

"What do you mean so what?" she exploded. "I kissed the man I've hated since I was old enough to walk! Don't you understand what this means? It means I can't work with him anymore!"

"No," he cut through her diatribe. "It means that your feelings for him aren't what you originally thought. It means that maybe you were too quick to judge him as an adult."

"Dad, please!" she begged. "I can't work with him! I just can't!"

He was finally fed up with it. "Yes you can!" he exclaimed back. "You are running away from your problems instead of facing them head on. You think that if you just turn your head and ignore the problem that it will go away. You're a _doctor_. You know better than that."

"But Derek--"

"And what about Derek? Have you asked what he feels about any of this? Have you bothered to look past your own feelings to ask him what he's going through? Maybe he's feeling the exact same confusion that you are. Believe it or not, he's not the self-centered jerk you've made him out to be. He has feelings and he deserves better than the treatment you've thrown at him."

For the first time, Meredith caught a glimpse of how much she must have been hurting Derek. She looked back at all the times she had talked to him that day and realized that there had been pain in his eyes each and every time. He was hurt.

Did this make her the bitch he had been calling her for so many years?

"You will resolve this between the two of you," he said very firmly. "If you don't, I will have no choice but to put you on probation."

Meredith simply nodded, still reeling in the revelations that kept coming. The moment she was dismissed, she ran out of the office to find Derek.

She didn't have to run for very long. She turned the corner and walking out of the scrub room was none other than Derek Shepherd himself.

"Dr. Grey," he said coldly when he saw her. "You missed out on a very interesting surgery today. Your loss."

No. This wasn't what it was going to be like.

Without stopping to think of the consequences of her actions, she swiftly took his face in her tiny hands and brought her lips crashing against his.

Derek was taken by surprise, but immediately began kissing her back, wrapping his tired arms around her waist. He was trying to figure out what had her acting like this, but he couldn't think properly. He couldn't think at all when she kept stealing his breaths, when she kept running her long fingers through his equally long hair.

"I'm sorry, Derek," she whispered when she finally pulled away. "I'm so sorry for everything. For everything I've done. I didn't mean to be everything you said I was."

He frowned at her, despite his rapidly beating heart. "What do you mean?"

"I _was_ a selfish bitch. I didn't realize that I was hurting you. I didn't realize how you felt at all."

Derek gazed into her eyes, feeling traitorous hope staining his heart. "Does this mean…"

Meredith answered him with another kiss. "Only if you promise not to put anymore pregnancy books in my locker."

He smiled widely, unable to contain his happiness. "Deal."

**A/N - Thank you to everyone who's stuck with this story through the end. I appreciate it immensely.**

**Please review!**


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